# CD review: DaShawn Hickman with Charlie Hunter – Drums, Roots & Steel – 2023: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/08/31/cd-review-dashawn-hickman-with-charlie-hunter-drums-roots-steel-2023-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2023-08-31T00:04:54+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The use of horizontal played-with-a-slide steel guitars in black Pentecostal churches,
a practice dating back the 1930s, handily illustrates the complex, mutt-like nature
of American musical cultures. Hawaiians had pioneered the technique of pressing 
a steel bar into the strings of horizontal (Portuguese) guitars with the left hand,
sliding from note to note in a voice-like way, while fingerpicking with the right
hand. **

Hawaiians passed the knowledge to some early so-called “sacred steel” players. After
Nashville adopted pedal steel guitar in the 1950s — on which a player could retune
strings on the fly, using foot pedals and kneepads — some sacred players adopted
that more complicated instrument (while others stayed with fixed-tuning lap steels).

In the later part of the 1990 decade, Arhoolie Records released a number of releases
highlighting the sacred steel music that had become a major part of the worship 
service in two dominions of The Church of the Living God, with talented players 
using lap and pedal steel guitars instead of the organ to raise a joyful noise.

Those releases created a surge of interest in artists like the Campbell Brothers,
Calvin Cooke, and Aubrey Ghent. Soon a new generation of players like Roosevelt 
Collier, A.J. Ghent (Aubrey’s son), and the Lee Boys took the music in new directions.
At the forefront were Robert Randolph and the Family Band. Randolph’s fleet-fingered
excursions on the pedal steel garnered him international acclaim, moving the music
beyond its gospel roots, becoming quite popular with aficionados of the jam band
scene as well as a staple on the blues festival circuit.

Sacred steel also cross-pollinates with other African American slide traditions,
stemming from the one-string diddly-bow: a length of wire stretched between woodblocks
that might be nailed to the side of a house, and played with a sliding bottle. That
starter instrument was a way station for blues guitarists “fretting” with a bottleneck
or metal slide slipped over a southpaw finger.

The initial impetus for this debut release from DaShawn Hickman came from the 2019
North Carolina Folk Festival, where Hickman met Charlie Hunter, a guitarist noted
for his outstanding technical skills as well as the custom built guitars with seven
and eight strings that he utilizes. They stayed in touch, and two years ago decided
to do a project together. Hickman had been playing with the Allen Boys, billed as
North Carolina’s only touring sacred steel band.

It was Hunter’s suggestion that they create space for Hickman’s lap steel guitar,
making it a focus in the mix. With that in mind, they enlisted the aid of two well-
versed percussionists, Atiba Rorie and Brevan Hampden. Hunter handles the bass guitar.
Hickman’s wife, Wendy, contributes vocals and plays the tambourine.

Hickman learned to play the steel guitar at a young age, listening to his mother
sing, then trying to pick out the notes she sang on his instrument. You get a taste
of that approach on “Shout,” a song of praise that finds DaShawn engaging in a spirited
call and response with Wendy’s dignified vocal. The opening track, “Saints,” takes
the classic in a new direction with a thick bass line from Hunter, swirling percussive
rhythms, and Hickman’s impressive improvisations on the melody. Another gospel standard,“
Just A Closer Walk With Thee,” gives Hickman the opportunity to showcase his musical
approach, once again taking his time to explore the melody, avoiding the impulse
to fill the space with a flurry of notes. Instead, his measured approach and sensitive
interaction with the percussionists offers many delights.

“Morning Train” features a strong vocal turn from Wendy while her husband conjures
up images of locomotives on the lap steel. When the drummers lay down a percussive
break, Hickman finally turns the heat up, his inspired playing calling God’s children
home. The couple share the vocals on the solemn “Don’t Let The Devil Ride,” another
lengthy track full of the guitarist’s understated variations on the melody.

The disc finishes with Hickman’s interpretations of two more gospel standards, “
Precious Lord” and “Wade In The Water.” The former is centered on a loping percussive
pattern that gives Hickman a solid foundation for his subtly impassioned guitar 
musings while the latter has soaring steel licks that threaten to explode at any
second, only to give way to a percussion coda that brings the brief track to a satisfying
conclusion.

Throughout the album, Hickman stays focused on the song, the melody, and the voice,
creating beautifully crafted improvisations that generate expressive new dimensions
in familiar songs. It may take some time for his lap steel to sink into your consciousness.
When it does, you will have no doubts as to why he is nominated for two 2023 Blues
Blast Music Awards, in the _New Artist Debut Album_, and the _Slide Guitarist Of
the Year_ categories. It is a heady mix, this seamless melding of gospel music with
rhythms that spring from African and Latin traditions, anchored by Hunter’s efforts
on bass. And Hickman makes it work, reminding listeners time and again about the
lessons he absorbed from his mother.

The sacred steel tradition got more exposure in the new century thanks to crossover
jammer Robert Randolph. Players who came up in his wake include DaShawn Hickman 
of Mt. Airy, North Carolina’s Allen Boys, an electric band mixing the sacred and
secular. With the 37-minute seven-tune Drums, Roots & Steel, Hickman furthers all
that cross-culturalism by deploying a pair of Afro-Latin percussionists in place
of drum set. Their congas, bongos, blocks, shakers, tambourine and ringing metal
make gospel music’s old-world roots explicit.

Credit for that percussion section goes to album producer Charlie Hunter, whose 
prominent billing on the sleeve is more about that groovemeister’s endorsement than
his profile within. Hunter plays electric bass guitar on all but one track, mostly
taking a low-key role, though he will facilitate the bump in the beat. Many churches
discourage boogieing down in the pews, but in the House of God sect that gave rise
to sacred steel, such exertions signal ecstatic praise, not demonic influence. The
bumpingest number leads off, a syncopated lope on Dixielanders’ fave “When the Saints
Go Marching In.”

Hickman plays a 12-string pedal steel, and such instruments (with their narrow-interval
tunings) were designed to facilitate lush, multi-string chord voicings. But Hickman,
like other sacred-steelists, is a linear, voice-oriented player: he’s more about
melody than background harmony, though he’ll riff in the pauses, and punctuate with
grunting chords here and there, emulating amens from the flock, or pianist Horace
Silver’s terse jazz comping. Hickman the melodist likes a thick, slightly distorted
sound, which, combined with his slide vibrato, mimics rough Pentecostal voices. 
Sensitive to true and finely shaded pitch, he makes you hear the writhing life in
his little fluctuations. (Messing with a decaying note: it’s what guitarists do.)
Late in that opening “Saints,” steel with wah-wah pedal testifies over stop-time
rhythm, echoing the fancy ornaments one might hear when a choir’s solo singer takes
flight. There’s more sanctified aerobatics on the equally evergreen “Just a Closer
Walk with Thee,” where Hickman also feathers a few Hawaiian and Nashville chords,
and the percussionists set up a quasi-Cuban montuno for him to ride over: more spice
in the mix.

Wendy Hickman sings three numbers with friendly gusto. “Shout” is pure gospel joy
over a barely modified blues progression; on “Morning Train” she’s answered by wah-
wah’d steam-whistle effects — Hickman at his raunchiest/shoutiest. “Don’t Let the
Devil Ride” is really two versions back to back: a slow one where the leader sings
a chorus with some of those curlicues he voices on guitar elsewhere, before Wendy
takes over on a slightly faster more rhythmically active take with some slinky slide
chording. Pedal steel’s upward spirals gets most quietly passionate on a bare-bones,
slow-drag, trio “Precious Lord.” Here alas the dual percussionists lay back more
than they fill in the open texture, impassive enough to recall a 1970s ethnic-restaurant-
band drum machine. Whereas on “Wade in the Water,” they’re right in the pocket.

On the stereo stage, percussion fans out to the sides and strings barrel down the
middle. The no frills approach fits the program. (Benjy Johnson recorded them at
Earthtones in Greensboro.) Hickman’s live-wire, slightly reverby sound seems to 
pop straight out of his amp, unmediated, letting his sound speak for itself. Just
enough reverb applied elsewhere makes it all a snug fit.

![DaShawn Hickman, with Charlie Hunter – Drums, Roots & Steel | Album Review  – 
Blues Blast Magazine](https://i0.wp.com/www.bluesblastmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/
2023/08/dashawnhickmancd.jpg?resize=640%2C640&ssl=1)

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