Dan Hicks – Tangled Tales (2009) — Album Review

                                       The Sninit Report

Tangled Tales feels less like a late-career album and more like a well-worn barroom where the band never stopped playing.

By 2009, Dan Hicks had been refining his oddball hybrid—part gypsy jazz, part Western swing, part beatnik humor—for over four decades. What’s striking here is not reinvention, but continuity with confidence. This isn’t a comeback record; it’s a reminder that he never really left.

The Sound: Loose, Tight, and Unclassifiable

The album sits in that strange Hicks pocket:

• Django-style swing
• Cowboy jazz
• Folk-blues storytelling
• Scat singing that feels half-serious, half-inside joke

Critics often describe his style as a blend of jazz, country swing, folk, and blues all at once —but that almost undersells how casual it feels. The band (the ever-reliable Hot Licks) plays with surgical precision, yet nothing sounds stiff. It’s music that swings without trying to prove it can swing.

Vocals: The Hipster Sage

Hicks’ voice is key: dry, amused, slightly detached.
He delivers lines like he’s already heard the punchline and is waiting for you to catch up.

There’s also a looseness here—he scats, he slides, he half-speaks. The title track is literally built around scat vocals, turning nonsense into structure . It shouldn’t work. It does.

Songs: Old Tricks, Still Sharp

The material is a mix of:

• New originals
• Reworked older songs
• Covers (including Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”)

Highlights:

• “The Diplomat” – witty, nimble, almost cartoonishly clever
• “Song for My Father” – unexpectedly tender, with a soft Latin touch
• “Subterranean Homesick Blues” – transformed from frantic to cool, almost lounge-like
• “The Rounder” – greasy, bluesy swing with bite

The covers don’t feel like detours—they feel absorbed into Hicks’ universe, as if every song passed through the same slightly crooked lens.

The Band: Effortless Virtuosity

The Hot Licks—and guests like mandolinist David Grisman and harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite—give the album depth without stealing focus .

Everything is:

• tight but relaxed
• intricate but never flashy
• playful without becoming novelty

That balance is the whole game here.

Tone: Humor Without Gimmick

There’s humor everywhere, but it’s not parody.
It’s more like a raised eyebrow that lasts 50 minutes.

One reviewer compared the experience to a quirky cartoon balancing act—fun on the surface, but musically complex underneath . That’s exactly right: the silliness is real, but so is the craft.

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Final Take

Tangled Tales is what happens when an artist stops worrying about relevance and just refines their own language.

It’s:

• not modern
• not retro
• not trying to impress you

It just exists in its own swing-time bubble, where wit, musicianship, and oddness all coexist comfortably.

Verdict:
A late-career gem that proves Dan Hicks’ world never needed updating—just another chapter.