Bobby Hicks
Antioch, Tennessee
Bluegrass

Born in Newton, North Carolina, Hicks took up the fiddle at five years of age after being dropped as the mandolin player in his brother's band. Bobby's big break came in 1954 when Grand Ole Opry star Bill Monroe hired him. Bobby worked with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys from 1954 to 1960 and played fiddle on some of Monroe's most popular instrumental recordings during that time. Bill Monroe once remarked that Bobby Hicks is a "wonderful fellow--good, true and honest--and one of the finest fiddlers ever to be a Blue Grass Boy." High praise from the Father of Bluegrass Music!

In 1960, Bobby moved on from Monroe to join Porter Wagoner for three years, after which he settled in Las Vegas as the bandleader for the Judy Lynn Show, a position that kept him occupied until 1970. In 1975 Bobby met Ricky Skaggs at a bluegrass festival in Camp Springs, North Carolina, and they became instant friends. In 1981, Bobby became a charter member of the Ricky Skaggs Band, which later evolved into Kentucky Thunder and was considered one of the most influential and critically acclaimed country and bluegrass bands of the 1980s.

Bobby has recorded on well over fifty albums throughout his career, including three Bill Monroe albums in the 1980s: Southern Flavor (which won the very first Grammy Award for "Best Bluegrass Recording), Stars of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, and Bluegrass '87--all on MCA Records. Bobby's stellar fiddle playing was a main ingredient on the two Grammy award winning recordings made by the Ricky Skaggs Band: the fiddle instrumental "Wheel Hoss," that Bobby originally recorded with Bill Monroe, and the Buddy Emmons steel guitar classic "Raisin' the Dickins." Undoubtedly, though, some of Bobby's most popular bluegrass recordings have been with the Bluegrass Album Band, an all-star, award-winning group consisting of Hicks, Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, J.D. Crowe, Jerry Douglas, Vassar Clements and Todd Phillips.

It has been over fifty years since Bobby first made his debut appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and he still performs there regularly throughout the year. Hicks has continued to play on sessions, as well as recording and releasing the star-studded 1998 solo set Fiddle Patch, on which he uses his now-standard five-string fiddle, a 1976 custom creation of the late Harvey Keck. When Bobby was asked what, exactly, sets the fiddle apart from other old-time-music instruments, the Fiddler's Hall of Famer replied, "The fiddle kind of sings and hums the words.…Some fiddles can talk." There is no doubt that over the years Bobby Hicks has made a lot of great talk with his fiddle.

At the 2004 Great Lakes Folk Festival, Bobby is joined by Steve Sutton (banjo), Darren Nicholson (mandolin, vocals), Eddie Rose (guitar, vocals), and Gary Allen (upright bass, vocals).

Links

http://www.skaggsfamilyrecords.com/bio_bobbyhicks.cfm
http://doodah.net/bgb/BobbyHicks.html
http://www.bluegrassmusic.com/bu/reviews/FiddlePatch.htm