Harlem-born rising jazz-blues star King Solomon Hicks will be playing a special show at London’s iconic 100 Club on Tuesday 7th June. Support will come from Toby Lee. Tickets are available HERE
Hicks will be playing songs from his latest album HARLEM, which was released in March 2020 via Provogue/Mascot Label Group – home to George Benson, Joe Bonamassa, Robert Cray, Beth Hart, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and more. Watch the lyric video for “I’d Rather be Blind” HERE
Hicks won the 2021 Blues Foundation Award for ‘Best Emerging Artist Album’ and has picked up support from the BBC Radio 2 blues show as well as plaudits from the likes of Classic Rock magazine who said “[Hicks] has Harlem under his fingernails and the touch of a natural-born bluesman. His fresh, clipped guitar style and vintage holler suggest an anachronistic soul man.“ It was Guitar Techniques ‘Album of the Month’ upon release praises him saying, “Harlem is a very strong album and Hicks really is one to watch out for,” whilst Powerplay magazine proclaimed“ Harlem is an album that showcases his extraordinary talents.” He has also picked up support from Blues Matters, Blues in Britain and more.
He has recently wowed audiences in the US with a run of shows including supporting artists such as Joe Louis Walker, Samantha Fish and Shemekia Copeland.
He grew up in Harlem “around a lot of great musicians,” he says. The city has been synonymous with vibrancy, art and music ever since the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. Music runs through the veins of the city, so there was no doubt that the young Hicks, who was only 6 years old when he started playing the guitar, was going to absorb those surroundings. By 13 he was on the stage at the Cotton Club, four times a week, as lead guitarist in the clubs’ 17 piece band and was already playing in legendary venues such as St. Nick’s in Sugar Hill and the iconic Lenox Lounge which Malcolm X had been a patron, and had seen the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane grace the stage.
His full debut, ‘HARLEM’ is produced by multiple Grammy Award winner Kirk Yano (Miles Davis, Public Enemy, Mariah Carey), and showcases Hicks as a writer, player and interpreter. Originals such as the roadhouse ready ‘421 South Main,’ the gospel shuffle of ‘Have Mercy on Me’ and the aching instrumental ‘Riverside Drive,’ he rubs musical elbows with staples such as “’Everyday I Sing the Blues’ and ‘It’s Alright,’ a Latin-tinged take on Blood, Sweat & Tears’ ‘I Love You More Than You Will Ever Know,’ a funked-up romp through Gary Wright’s ‘Love is Alive’ and a searing rendition of Sonny Boy Williamson’s ‘Help Me’ that closes the album.
