This write up was from May of last year. It is a good read. In case you didn't see it. I wanted to share.
I've interviewed many famous people, including several from my parents' generation. Taylor Hicks, however, is the only celebrity who has ever prompted my mother to ask if I could get her an autograph. That's pretty impressive. I've interviewed William Shatner, and everybody wants William Shatner's autograph. But my mother only cares for Taylor Hicks.
The problem—and I'm thinking about this on the drive from New York to Atlantic City—is that Taylor Hicks has every right to refuse the simplest favor for anyone who's ever covered the Birmingham music scene. What did any of us ever do for him back when he was struggling to get an afternoon slot in a moldy City Stages tent?
If I were Taylor Hicks, I'd have set up this interview simply to exact bloody revenge on anybody from the South. All I have to offer Hicks is the fun fact that I was at the Flora-Bama Bar last week, and it seems that he doesn't owe anybody there any money. I'm hoping that'll put him in a good mood.
• • •
Taylor Hicks is taller than you'd expect. He's also more handsome. He looks like a heterosexual Jake Gyllenhaal. I've never met anyone from Birmingham with such a perfect Elvis Presley drawl, but it doesn't matter if that's an affectation. Hicks makes it sound perfectly natural.
We're in the dressing room of the Music Box Theatre at the Borgata Hotel Casino. Jet was using it last Saturday. Wanda Sykes will be here the Saturday after this. Hicks has finished his sound check, and he's dressed in an outfit that looks exactly like the one on the cover of his major-label debut. It seems he casually poses in what is his actual casual wear.
Most important, Hicks is happy to talk to someone from Black & White. "I ran some ads with you guys," he notes.
And yet, I reply, pre-"Idol," Black & White ignored him like every paper in Birmingham did.
"I wouldn't necessarily say that I was—well, yeah. It wasn't just Birmingham. I had my two albums out, and I was trying to get over to Atlanta to play, and I was doing anything and everything to be heard. I went unnoticed, but I wasn't big enough. You can't cover everybody. If somebody's not making a buzz, you're sure not going to cover him."
So everything's okay between us and Taylor Hicks. That's a relief.
• • •
I arrived in Atlantic City thinking that Taylor Hicks was a likable guy who deserved respect for not making a crappy pop album in the wake of "American Idol." Hicks' major-label debut is perfectly fine as major-label pop albums go, and has some strong playing. But I'm still not expecting what I hear during the sound check. It seems that a Taylor Hicks concert is surprisingly raw. And impressive. The guy has a great voice when he gets to take the top down. It's a big difference from what we heard winning over the hearts and minds of teenagers and housewives voting via their cell phones.
I'm suddenly interested in hearing what he has planned for his next album. He could really do justice to obscure blues-rock songs by acts such as Blodwyn Pig. Hicks could make the kind of daring album that would either establish him an important artist or send him off to the jam-band circuit as a surprisingly entertaining oddity. Huey Lewis does that a lot nowadays, and Hicks already has enough money to enjoy the same indulgence. In fact, it's April 14, and I ask Hicks what his income tax was like compared to last year's.
"Financially," he says, "it's better right now, but I'm dealing with The Man—as opposed to having never really had to deal with him. You know, I was 30 years old and playing Wednesday nights at DanielGeorge [restaurant], and everyone would come in with their business suits and their 401k plans and their aspirations, and I was stuck hoping that I'd be playing at a Steak & Ale on Thursday night. Terrell Owens once said that the only person who could cover him is the IRS. I know what he's talking about now."
As for that aggressive live sound—well, Hicks isn't afraid of scaring an audience that might include my mother.
"There are so many preconceived notions about me. The only thing I have is my live show and my songs. That's it. I have to be booked. I'll always hang my hat on being a live performer, because that's my bread and butter. My shows will always have that edge that comes from years of performing. There's room for me to play around as an instrumentalist, and I'm working with an incredible caliber of musicians. Tonight's audience is going to hear the best live music that I've played in my whole life."
• • •
I was sitting at the Bally's Wild West bar and listening to the singer for a country and western band. "This is a song that I got to sing in a Jeep commercial," he announced, and then launched into a plodding version of "King of the Road." It was 2 pm. I was killing time before interviewing Hicks, and "American Idol" suddenly seemed like a perfectly valid career path for any singer. There are worse ways to pay the bills.
Hicks appreciates his own good fortune. Even better, he isn't kidding himself about his strange career.
"I know that I may not be as hot as I am in two or three years," he says. "I understand the business. I'm having to re-establish myself having just been established. There aren't too many artists in the world who can say that. Billy Earl McClelland was Delbert McClinton's old guitar player, and he was my sideman when I was 18. That's still amazing to me. He once said to me, 'It's not how you get there; it's if you get there.' That's stuck with me for a long time. It's always going to be an uphill battle for me, and that's okay."
• • •
Atlantic City on a Saturday night in April can be kind of slow. Many resorts aren't even booking headliners for their theaters. George Carlin is in town, and there's something called The Sammy Davis, Jr., Revue. Otherwise, Taylor Hicks doesn't have much competition.
That's not why his show at the Borgata is sold out. He won't just be playing to big spenders who got handed free tickets. Hicks has drawn a group of hard-core fans. There are already lots of Taylor Hicks T-shirts visible in the casinos—"Drink until he's Taylor Hicks," proclaims one—and plenty of enthused females who are clearly here for more than a spin of the slots.
Most of these women have likely driven in from Philadelphia. They're the types that I like to call Philbillies, but that's no reflection on Hicks. He'll be playing New York City in a few weeks, and that show's also on the way to selling out. I tell Hicks that he's going to really enjoy doing a show in Manhattan's Beacon Theater. It turns out that he already has.
"I played with the Allman Brothers there," he explains, "on their last night when they did a lot of shows. I played some harmonica. That's definitely one of the pluses of having this kind of opportunity. I started out in a Widespread Panic cover band, and I just sat in with those guys in Cleveland. I've exceeded every expectation I ever had for my career. If you had told me a year and a half ago that I'd ever sell 700,000 units, I would've looked at you like you were crazy. I'm really enjoying this."
• • •
The big Taylor Hicks show is over. It went very well. He had the fans hooked. It makes sense. You're some suburban gal goofing on being part of a Soul Patrol, and then you get the Taylor Hicks live experience and realize that he's the real deal. I bet many of his older fans were into Bonnie Raitt and thought of Taylor as their transition into easy listening. Instead, they discover that they're still capable of tapping into some rough rhythm 'n' blues.
Now I'm sitting at a bar in the Borgata next to a woman from Asbury Park who's giving me a detailed description of her sexual fantasy involving Tom Jones and a male-female couple. I didn't have these kinds of conversations in Atlantic City when I was single. Not even during the porn conventions. Eventually, the topic gets back to the vocalist who was first being discussed. "Where," she asks, "do you think Taylor Hicks lives now?"
I'd asked Hicks that question a few hours before—although it seemed to me that the guy must have been homeless for the past year.
"Yeah," said Hicks, "I have no permanent address. I have an alias. I don't have a home."
Then he leaned in close: "If you think about it, it's really cool."
• • •
This, incidentally, is how Hicks autographs the CD for my mother: "Soul Patrol! Taylor Hicks." That's no good. He doesn't have to cover Blodwyn Pig, but Hicks should really take my advice on this one. The entire Soul Patrol thing has to go. I won't let my mother be part of it. &
http://www.bwcitypaper.com/1editorialbody.lasso?-token.folder=2007-05-17&-token.story=193541.112112&-token.subpub#123
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Subject: Soul Brother Number 2 May 17, 2007 
Sat Aug 23, 2008 9:28 pm
Interesting read but I do not get that last part about the Soul Patrol. I like us alot and am thankful we are there supporting this very unique, talented and sexy guy.