Yesterday, muggy, hot, too hot to be outside, but I landed inside Bobby Hicks’s house where he was jamming with Sam Parker and Frank Bowman. It was informal, loose, lots of talk, lots of playing. Bobby Hicks is the ten-time Grammy award winning fiddle player who lives about three miles down the road from me. He was one of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys for many years and was the fiddle player on all of Ricky Scaggs’ number one hits. He’s best known as a Bluegrass player, but with Sam and Frank they played a mix of Bluegrass and Swing. That sweet, sweet fiddle and that soft, penetrating voice. I’m a lucky boy.
Summertime
And the living is easy
Fish are jumping
And the cotton is high
Oh, your Daddy’s rich
And your Ma is good-lookin’
So hush, little baby
Don’t you cry
Bobby HIcks.
He suddenly put his bow down and strummed his fiddle. “There she is, Lix Cheney, ” Bobby said. “Now, I’ll tell you. She may be a hard-core Republican, but she’s gonna lock that turkey up.”
One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky
But ‘til that morning
There’s a’nothing can harm you
With Daddy and Mammy standin’ by
Frank Bowman, Bobby Hicks, Sam Parker, PawPaw, 2022.
Sam, “It has been my great pleasure to call Hicks my friend and to be in the regular presence of one of the founders of the bluegrass genre.”