Born in Newton, North Carolina,
Hicks took up the fiddle after being dropped as the mandolin player in his brother's band. Self-taught,
Hicks' perseverance paid off when he was brought into Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in 1954, earning Monroe's deep respect. In 1960, he moved on from
Monroe to join
Porter Wagoner for three years, after which he settled in Las Vegas as the bandleader for the
Judy Lynn show, a position that kept him occupied until 1970.
On the road until 1975,
Hicks finally chose to return to North Carolina, where he developed a friendship with
Ricky Skaggs and released the well-regarded
Texas Crapshooter in 1977 (reissued in 1994 by County Records). Darkness of the Delta, a twin fiddle set with
Kenny Baker, followed in 1980, as did
the Bluegrass Album Band, a traditional bluegrass project that saw
Hicks joining guitarist
Tony Rice and others.
Hicks left the informal band in the four years between the production of
The Bluegrass Album Vol. 4 and
The Bluegrass Album Vol. 5, but would return for 1996's
The Bluegrass Album Vol. 6.
In 1981,
Hicks was drafted into the Ricky Skaggs Band, which evolved into
Kentucky Thunder over the years, with
Hicks being the only original member left. While remaining a member of the
Skaggs recording and touring unit as of 1998,
Hicks has continued to play on sessions, as well as recording and releasing the star-studded 1998 solo set
Fiddle Patch, on which he uses his now-standard five-string fiddle, a 1976 custom creation of the late Harvey Keck.
–
Steven McDonald, Rovi