Songwriter Bobby Hicks stares his crowd right in the face.The crowd blinks.
Bobby fires: "I'm from Tampa. It never got so bad in my town that I had to leave."
The locals let out whoops and hollers. The rest know where they stand. The out-of-staters, snowbirds, developers, condo commandos, phosphate contaminators, tree cutters, big sugarmen and Mother Nature no-gooders prepare for a righteous punishment.
His 1979 Harley shovelhead parked out back, Hicks squints as the brain synapses crackle like Florida wildfire on a flatwoods summer night. He might rail on about Winnebagos driving slow in the left lane, their blinker on since Detroit, or imprinted manatees swimming to boat motors hoping for lettuce.
So much to be angry about. So little time. Hicks rares his head back, grins like a buck in stud and takes to strumming his guitar: Well they cut down the trees and the mangrove keys/ And they killed off the coral and the old manatees/ And they put parking lots where the beach used to be/ And it's damn sure killin' me.
His pain washes over the crowd like baptism. The applause is nervous and wild.
I've witnessed that scene numerous times in the 20 years or so I've known folksinger Bobby Hicks. Though he always promises to behave, he never does. Soon he'll stomp the stage, attacking the greed that ruined the fishin' holes of his boyhood. He'll frame the outrage with haunting personal songs that few in the genre can touch.
When WMNF-88.5 FM asked me to host a show centered on real Florida Folk Music, I immediately thought of Bobby Hicks as a co-host. A fifth generation Floridian born at Tampa General Hospital, Hicks was educated at H.B. Plant High and matured in the U.S. Army (1970-'73). He worked 20 years in the electronic alarm industry before retiring to fulltime Florida folk.
Florida music came to Hicks the moment he grabbed a guitar as a child: "We didn't have much money and didn't go many places. It came to me natural." His world was Florida woods and water. One day, the Alafia River turned white.
Hicks' childhood mentor, Hillsborough educator D. G. "Dave" Erwin, took him to a nearby phosphate plant and explained why.
"That's when angry Florida environmental music was born," says Hicks.
You can take lots of pictures but don't drink the water/ Big business calls it progress, but Crackers call it slaughter.
Hicks' anger belies the beauty of his ballads. Portraits of Cedar Key shrimpers and old Florida forts and moonlit Suwannee nights. Hicks' humor has a unique streak; he once unveiled a plan called "exploding geriatrics." He asked old folks to "do some good for Florida. If you're planning murder-suicide, strap on a bomb and walk into a condo."
Tourist organizations don't know if he's good or bad for their business. "Oh, I'm in good with them right now." he says. "They all want to reactivate me."
Hicks joins me at the WMNF air studio every Thursday morning (9:06-10 a.m.), unleashing his lofty cracker views, as seen through the eyes of an alligator snapping turtle facing down a John Deere bush hog at the edge of the last gator hole in the final Florida swamp. We occasionally play selections from his classic recording "I'm Florida, Need I Say More."
Thursday, Sept. 4, looms as a special day for Hicks. Reclusive swampmaster Whitey Markle will be our guest in the studio. After that, we'll all depart for Treasure Island's Sunset Beach to smoke turkeys and play music for an all-day "Bobby Hicks 50th Birthday Bash" at Ka'Tiki (8801 W. Gulf Blvd., 727-360-2272). Owners Fred and Kathy Stern present a Florida Folk Night each Thursday and word has it that just about every "real" folk musician in the state will stop by (3-11 p.m.) to perform.
Next, Hicks will hold court at Jimmy Mac's, on Gandy's Tampa side, for a Sept. 10 show at 7:30 p.m. (877-332-2973).
If you haven't been cussed out or served Florida communion by Bobby Hicks, this is the chance. The Cassius Clay of Florida Folk will be in top form: "It's all right to be bathed in controversy," he says, "when you're washed in resolve."
Peter B. Gallagher lives in St. Petersburg and is a freelance writer and photographer.
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2003.