No. 91: ‘I Scare Myself’

The wag who came up with the descriptive “hippie jazz” for psychedelic music probably wasn’t thinking of “I Scare Myself.”

More likely the turn-by-turn soloing of groups such as the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Psychedelic workouts such as “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.” The acid-tinged jammers loosely employing the MO of the great bebop outfits of the 1950s.

Yet Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks’ “I Scare Myself” was hippie jazz at its purest, bringing to mind Duke Ellington’s stranger renditions of “Caravan,” and of course the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt and his great violinist Stéphane Grappelli.

Swing specialist Dan Hicks, known for lickety-split lyrics and sly perversions of soda-shop Americana, would seem an unlikely contributor to the relatively small pool of acoustic psychedelic music, but consider the man’s history.

Hicks came out of the pre-Beatles folk world to join psychedelic pioneers the Charlatans in 1965. Deeply influential on the San Francisco scene, the band dressed in old west garb. Their residency at the famed Red Dog Saloon inspired the first psychedelic poster. The scene at that bordertown bar also is remembered as a trial run for the Bay Area acid tests, with band members reportedly tripping as they performed an eccentric mix of jug band music and folk. The Dead were fans, at least of their rivals’ sartorial stylings.

Long-haired and droopy-stached, Hicks drifted from drums to the front of the band, showing songwriting promise, but the Charlatans failed to catch fire — this at a time the music industry was throwing bread at every hippie act in the region.

“The Charlatans were kind of dysfunctional anyway,” Hicks recalled. “There was no real management, and it was just kind of some loose guys.” The band haunted the San Francisco ballroom scene for several years. Hicks took to opening its shows with his new acoustic group. “I was only fond of the music up to a point,” he said of the Charlatans. “Rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t really my love.”

Hicks went solo with the folk-swing act Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks in 1968, leaving behind the psychedelic scene. Mostly.

“I Scare Myself” first saw light in 1969, on the Hicks debut album “Original Recordings.” It ran 5:18. It’s the tamest of the versions, with the female backup singers’ peculiar contributions providing some hints of what was to come. Violinist Sid Page gets busy at the 4-minute mark, soloing for a mere minute. It’s a lovely performance by the young group, intriguing but far from bold.

By 1972, on the album “Striking it Rich,” the song “I Scare Myself” became a more urgent affair. The lovely turned spooky. Hicks adopted a pained yelp, serving the paranoia at the heart of his lyrics. “I scare myself, it can get frightening / I scare myself, to think what I could do / I scare myself, it’s some kind of voodoo … “

The Lickette vocal duo of Maryann Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg add a curious dreamlike quality. Here is drug music for sophisticates. The recording is all about violinist Page, however; his playing is light years ahead of the first try — the instrumental run begins at 2.5 minutes and doesn’t let up until the finale, three minutes later. Daring to screech and snarl, as if he were fronting the Flock, Page delivers one of the finest violin performances to be found in all of rock. An exercise in sonic surrealism. Thomas Dolby, who would go on to cover the song, hails the recording’s “haunted quality.”

Yet the fullest expression of the song comes from Hicks’ 60th birthday celebration in San Francisco, released both on CD and video (“An All-Star Cast of Friends, Live,” 2003). Against a mob-scene tapestry of musicians and singers from Hicks’ past and present, three violinists tear in to the number: Brian Godchaux, David LaFlamme and “Symphony” Sid Page. The audience howls in appreciation of each solo, especially Page’s. A half dozen female singers do a mythic-siren bit. In the late going, Hicks interrupts the players with a rock-guitarist spoof, but the spell is too deep to be broken (it’s best enjoyed on CD). The performance runs more than 10 minutes, an eternity in Hicksville.

The song served as a dramatic concert closer for Hicks throughout his half-century career, eagerly awaited by the cognoscenti. (The late Hicks’ autobiography also was titled “I Scare Myself.”)

When Hicks and the classic lineup of his group performed on the live “In Concert” TV series in 1973, they used the number to upstage Miles Davis’ fusion band. Hippie jazz, indeed.