About Folk Funk

Traditional folk music is often structured in the I-IV-V format such as playing C-F-G or G-C-D chord progressions. Folk Funk is all about using seventh and ninth chords in place of and in addition to major chords such as C7-F7-G7 or C9-C7-F-G7 chord progressions.

About G. Hicks

G. Hicks fuses traditional folk, blues, and ragtime idioms with modern funk sounds to create his own self-dubbed genre of music called Folk Funk.

G. Hicks was born and raised in Michigan, went to college in Boston, and now resides in San Francisco. Growing up, he was not particularly drawn to music until his high school senior year when he was given a copy of Woody Guthrie's autobiography, 'Bound For Glory.' After reading it, he purchased his first CD, 'Struggle' by Woody Guthrie. He was enthralled with how music can have a purpose, how lyrics can carry meaning, how a song can be a message.

It wasn't until his college years that G. Hicks took up guitar and harmonica. He became friends with 'Guitar' Rob who lived in his freshman dormitory. He was amazed to hear Rob and a few others having a guitar jam one night. He knew right then and there that was what he had to do - learn how to play guitar. Guitar Rob patiently taught him song after song. They listened to folk, blues, and classic rock albums and they jammed out in many a music session.

Also noteworthy during his college years, G. Hicks took every music class he could to build his knowledge of music theory. Though G. Hicks is of the folk tradition in learning songs by ear rather than from written sheet music, he attributes learning music theory as invaluable to understanding the structure of music.

At the same time, he also worked in the college library and immersed himself in reading a vast collection of music biographies. He read biographies about ragtime era musicians from the 1890s and early 1900s like Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, and James P. Johnson. He was fascinated with the lives of blind, black blues guitar players from the 1920s and 1930s like Blind Blake, Blind Willie McTell, and Reverend Gary Davis. He relished in jug band music coming out of Memphis in the 1920s and 1930s like (Gus) Cannon's Jug Stompers and the Memphis Jug Band. He studied the stories of folk musicians from the 1930s and 1940s like Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Sonny Terry. It was reading about the lives of all these icons that enriched his desire to play music.

Today G. Hicks can be found putting on music shows locally in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco as well as collaborating on music recordings with Guitar Rob. Listen to R&G Jukebox collaborations on this site and come check out a Folk Funk Music Show!