Jay Hickman (comedian)

Jay Hickman (April 19, 1955 - March 15, 1993) was a comedian best known for his downhome humor and independently-released, often-bawdy, but highly-appreciated material. Despite his death in the early 1990s, his legacy of Southern-based material still enjoys a cult following.

Bio

Hickman was born in Raleigh, North Carolina and was known as a "truck-stop" comedian, which denotes a genre of comedy that was meant to appeal to a Southern grass roots demographic and whose material was marketed mainly through truck stops. He started his career at the young age of 15 when he won a North Carolina state talent show, sponsored ironically by the Women's Club of America. Later, the great comedian Jackie Gleason saw him perform, and one of Gleason's friends quickly hired the unknown comic to perform on cruise ships, eventually progressing (or regressing as the case may be) to fame performing in strip clubs throughout the Southeast USA.

Career & fame

It is from those venues that he created and enjoyed a cult, underground following of fans who mainly owned his self-produced cassette tapes of those strip club performances which were self-distributed by him prior to his record deal with Laughing Hyena Records, the same label which discovered comedian Jeff Foxworthy. A total of 7 CDs were released and are still available through the company's web site. Hickman also appeared on HBO, Showtime & The Playboy Channel, performed on TV's Hee Haw, and opened dates for comedians Jackie Gleason, Sammy Davis Jr., and opened concerts for musical artists Tom Jones, Liza Minelli, Tanya Tucker, Aretha Franklin, Mel Torme, Anita Baker, Lee Greenwood and George Jones.

Death & afterlife

Hickman was diagnosed with liver disease in the 1980s and died at the early age of 37 in 1993. He is buried at Southeastern Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Despite his lack of widespread notariety, his cult following continues on due to the commitment of Laughing Hyena Records to honor Hickman's last request, for them to continue marketing his CDs for future generations to hear per the testimony of his friend and company founder, Arnie Hoffman, as found on the inner sleeves of Hickman's CDs.

Personal life

Hickman was never married even though he claimed in his performances to have been married 4 times and engaged 11 times.

Popular material

Perhaps his most enduring story was called "Boat Ride", about a male character with a hairlip who takes girls out on a boat ride in order to gain sexual favors ("put out or swim"), a trick which ultimately turns against him. He also created a raunchy version of song "The Twelve Days of Christmas".

External sources

* [http://www.allmusic.com All Music page for Jay Hickman (must enter artist name on main page - no deep linking)]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=302968 Find A Grave's posting of Hickman's obituary from the Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper]

Links

* [http://www.laughinghyenarecords.com/hickmanindex.html Laughing Hyena Records page for Jay Hickman]