Russ Hicks
Music has been a huge part of my life for as far back as I can remember. At age thirteen I started playing trumpet in the school band. At about the same time I got a lap steel (Gibson BR9) & amp. Someone showed me how to invert the second and third string on the E tuning and use a reverse slant to get the E to A change. A few years later I got a Gibson Electraharp but didn't spend much time on it because of playing lead guitar in our high school rock & roll band. When I was 17 that band was signed to Decca Records and moved to Las Vegas. We recorded in L.A. and played gigs in Vegas, mostly at the Showboat Hotel. That's where I met Speedy West; he was playing with Billy Strange.
After a year in Vegas I left and joined my parents in Aiken, S.C., graduated from high school and went immediately to Chicago, playing the north side bars for almost three years. In 1963 I moved back to W.Va., got married, played local clubs and taught guitar in a music store. In 1965 I moved to Florence, S.C. to do a local T.V.show (Slim Mims Show). It was not until then that I got my first Emmons steel and at least was playing 50/50 lead and steel. When I went to the Emmons Factory in Burlington, N.C. to pick up my steel I played a little (very little) for Ron Lashley. When Weldon Myrick quit Connie Smith to play staff on the Opry he called Ron to see if he could recommend a replacement; he did (me) and that's how I got to Nashville (1967).
After I worked a while with Connie, Buddy Emmons decided to move to L.A. and play bass with Roger Miller so I went to work with Ray Price. It was lots of fun (five fiddles) but I had to move to Dallas and I didn't like not being in Nashville so I took the job with Kitty Wells and moved back to Nashville. While I was with Connie I played on her records at RCA-B and while with Kitty on her recordings at Bradleys' Barn. That's where I met and recorded with some real giants like Grady Martin, Pig Robbins, Pete Wade, Buddy Harmon, Bob Moore, Jr. Huskey, Harold Bradley, and very lucky for me Charlie McCoy, who was very instrumental in getting me "in" and on a lot of studio accounts; not as many as the heavyweights of the 70s & 80s, but far more than I expected. I played on master recordings with such artists as Charlie, Jerry Wallace, Marty Robbins, Ronnie Milsap, Mickey Gilley, Larry Gatlin, Warner Mack, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tom T.Hall, Don Gibson, Mickey Newberry, Kenny Price, Wynn Stewart, Wanda Jackson, Johnnie Lee, Barbie Benton, Charlie Daniels Band, Connie, Kitty, and others. Charlie also got me on the staff band at Hee Haw when Curley Chalker moved back to Vegas.
In the early 70s Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Crawford and I formed a production/publishing company (Pixenbar Music) and did a lot of work at BRT Studio (Rusty Thornhill). It was during this time that the three of us, along with Sonny Garrish and John Hughey, recorded the 'Nashville Bar Association' album. Also during that time Jimmy and I did our first steel duet album 'Chicken Pickin' Good', and later 'Chicken Pickin' Plus', and I did my R&R album 'A Journey Into Yesterday'.
At the same time all that was going on, I was a member of the 'alternative country rock group' Barefoot Jerry, a group of studio musicians headed by the legendary Wayne Moss who got together to record our own 'brand' of music, sometimes not so commercial but lots of fun. It was during this time that the French artist Eddie Mitchell came to the states to record a series of albums with Nashville musisians; he also did a series of concert tours in Europe, using the same musicians who played on his Nashville recordings. In all we made five trips to Paris, either touring or doing concerts right in Paris at the Olympia Theatre; also a French T.V. special. Eddie was and is a huge star in France and was a fun way to expose people to pedal steel in Europe during that time period.
BFJ cut six albums during the six years I was with them, the last two being on the Monument label. Also on that label was a pretty blonde from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Laney Smallwood. When we met she decided she couldn't live without me so what could I do but marry her. She was doing a series of concerts with George Hamilton IV in Blackpool, England, what they called 'a summer season', so I joined her and we were married there, George being my best man. Two years later we had our first of two daughters and Laney sort of eased out of the music business and into motherhood; Nashville's loss, Russ' gain. Now our daughters are in college and as of about two years ago Laney and I have had a 'resurging' of both our careers because of all the steel guitar shows that are being done all over the country, spinning off the world famous 'Scotty's International Steel Guitar Convention' in St. Louis. We do about twenty shows a year and it gives us a reason to record an album, each, every year and a great venue to meet new people and players and have a really good time doing it.
I still do some recording and TV work, still mostly with Charlie McCoy; not as much now as then but I guess that's the way it's supposed to be. It's been great becoming family with so many fellow musicians and artists and doing what I was born to do and having such a good time doing it. I've been wonderfully blessed by my Creator God and it be his will, I'm not finished yet.
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