Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks

Of all the folk-rock freaks and skewed blues hippies who came of age in San Francisco in the '60s, Dan Hicks was second only to Doug Sahm as a musically voracious, wickedly funny iconoclast (whether or not he was popping acid like peanuts). With the Hot Licks, he managed to make psychedelic folk that actually swung by playing guitar with supple speed; Hicks' music was the sound of a country-blues soul trapped in a jazz hipster's body — while blending his laconic, country & Western singing with the tart vamp of backing singers the Lickettes. On classics like "I Scare Myself," "Mama's Boy Blues" and "Shorty Falls in Love," Hicks' comedic timing is as stoned as it is slippery, a playful vision of Americana that jitters and winks like an R. Crumb sketch board come to sonic life.