Pete_Hicks_Biography

(Tom, 2 cousins, Pete)

From a coal oil lamp-lit farmstead 90 miles northeast of Grande Prairie, Alberta, youngster Pete first heard Webb Pierce and Hank Snow and dozens of others who would influence a major portion of his life. With only a huge battery radio as a window to the outside world, he listened to Hank Snow, Wilf Carter, Webb Pierce, Earl Mitton and all the other radio stars of the day.

Lying about his age, Pete’s early-developed baritone voice started him on his radio career just shy of his 16^th birthday at CFGP in Grande Prairie, Alberta in 1956. Radio was more free-form then, with announcers selecting their own music or at least having the right to change the music selected by the station librarian. It was not long before Pete was playing much more of his radio heroes than anything else. The same pattern followed in subsequent stations in Peace River and Lloydminster, Alberta and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Pete with Bonnie Guitar and band

He started singing with various groups in Lloydminster and Saskatoon in the very early ‘60’s, and in 1962 he moved to Wausau, Wisconsin staying there for the one year required to maintain his immigrant Green Card. It also started him on the path as weekend touring performer; he met Tom ”Hoot ”Roberts, a transplanted southerner, who had a traveling band, a record company and the need for an emcee who could sing and provide a little comedy. Pete spent a year with Roberts and the Wisconsin radio station, a great experience but he greatly missed the west.

An ad in broadcaster magazine requested someone willing and able to program and build a staff for Spokane Washington’s first all country station, KSPO. Pete applied and was accepted, beginning a 17 year career with friend and manager Del Bertholf. He built the station library and aired the city’s first country morning show to great success the summer of 1963, garnering nearly one quarter of market share. From the beginning, he played the Canadian artists of his boyhood mixed in with the American stars. From 1963 to 1980, he was one of the leading broadcasters in Spokane, consistently in the market’s top three and gained enough exposure to hit the road with a group that played the Spokane valley’s many honkytonks and bars and ventured into Stateline Village Idaho’s strip.

A trip to Nashville in 1966 got him in the door of the Glaser Brothers office and resulted in the offer of a staff writer’s position. He headed back to Spokane to think that over, eventually deciding, as tempting as the offer was, his five- and six-year-old sons were more important. On the higher side, he and his group opened for David Houston and Hank Snow in the old Spokane Coliseum, opened for Billy Walker at North Idaho State College and did considerable traveling with David Frizzell and Bonnie Guitar throughout Eastern Washington. A phone call from a song plugger named Charlie Adams got him a connection with Ridgeway and Camarillo Music, owned by Gene Autry, and led to him placing his first song with a major label, Imperial Records which was soon to be absorbed by United Artist Records. The song was “The Kid from Whiskey Hill” and the singer was Buddy Cagle, a member of the Town Hall Party cast and a part of the Hank Thompson traveling show. Pete recorded on his own at the Buck Owens studio in Bakersfield and returned to Spokane radio, touring through the Washington-Idaho region. It was in Idaho that he met Rod Erickson, a transplanted Albertan from Beaverlodge and a world class yodeler and singer. That affiliation, although distance makes it sporadic, continues to this day.

In the early 70’s his KSPO owner and friend Del Bertholf sold the 1,000 watt day-timer to participate in co-ownership of 50,000 watt KGA and Pete went along with him. Clear channel KGA boomed country music from Alaska to southern California and was a huge success. “We promoted every country act of the day”, Pete recalls, “George and Merle and Hank Snow...David Houston and Jimmy Dean and Kitty and Johnny, along with Jack Roberts in Seattle and Marlin Payne in Billings, we brought in all the stars. It was a wonderful time”. Working alongside Paul Proctor, Johnny “O” Ogel and Big John Trimble, they dominated the Spokane country music market. In 1978 he was asked by owner Bob Swartz and station manager Monte Muse Dyer to format and bring on stream Spokane’s first country FM station, KZUN, in the Spokane Valley.

During his time in the States, Pete was able to air much of Canada top country music talent of the day to his American listeners, many of whom were really only familiar with Montana Slim (Wilf Carter) and Hank Snow. Regularly played on Pete’s shows were Dick Damron, R. Harlan Smith and Chris Neilson, Hal Lone Pine, Hank Smith, The Rhythm Pals, Tommy Hunter, yodeler Rod Erickson and many other Canadian artists to great acceptance. Almost all of this Canadian music he brought with him or picked up on visits home to Alberta. “It was good country music….it deserved being heard."

His sons graduated in 1978 and 1979 and he was on his way to a family reunion in Westlock, Alberta when he tuned in to 790 CFCW. After listening to now Canadian Hall of Honor member, Bev Munro, he knew he had to try to join this great station. Through the agency of Bev Munro, Pete came home in 1980 to CFCW. Under Munro’s tutelage, he worked any shift asked and in 1994, was asked if he would be interested in producing a two-hour Sunday morning Country Classic Show. Overwhelming response expanded the show to three hours shortly afterwards (Sunday mornings from 9 til noon) and with its outstanding ratings, it is now being considered for syndication. All this is in addition to his regular radio show which has been the top rated mid-day show (major-market, Alberta) for many years.

When Pete first arrived back in Alberta, he met friend and musician Brent Smith and together they formed the duo “Fireweed.” From 1980 to 1985, they performed throughout central Alberta and eventually recorded two, self-written tunes, one of which was one of the first music videos on the new “CMT.” As the new millennium came in, George Myren and a number of other traditionalists formed the Canadian Country Music Legends, dedicated to keeping the traditional sound alive and available and, as had happened once before in Pete’s life, they came looking for an emcee that could provide a little comedy. His love of classic country music earned him an invitation to the Alberta Legends concerts in 2002. Once word got out that he had several decades of band tours and music writing, publishing and singing under his belt, it quickly turned into an invitation to perform. With the encouragement of his band mates, he took on his first, full fledged CD titled “Stories” in 2004, recording new versions of the songs previously recorded in Bakersfield, the Buddy Cagle cut and the Fireweed single releases of the 80’s to great acceptance wherever the Legends played. The second CD in 2006, largely co-written with Twylene Hicks, his wife and partner, was titled “Home Is You.” It received great reviews from Country Music News, and the title track and others received heavy airplay across Europe on the Comstock label and is still one their most requested songs. As he looks forward to the future, another album of traditional music “The Old Country Hall,” a remembrance of where he was first exposed to this music, is about to be released.

Travel with his musical family keeps him thinking young. It is thanks in large part to them that his boyhood musical heroes still are just that…heroes. Between radio and a busy concert schedule, Pete continues to promote and perform his favorite music, traditional country. In the fall of 2010, he was awarded the ‘Alberta Men of Country Music Lifetime Achievement Award’for his years of contribution to the industry and was nominated for the Country Radio Broadcaster Hall of Fame. Now in his 55^th year of broadcasting, Pete still approaches every day with a rare passion for radio, country music and his listeners. When asked why he hasn’t yet considered retirement, he replies “Retire from what? This is what I do.”