When Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks first become an underground / hepcat sensation in 1969, with their their retro-swingy music and high-energy / visually-arresting stage show, they delivered a unique signature sound. Their music — a mix of Western swing, folk, cowboy songs, jazz, blues, etc. — definitely stood out during an era that was one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest flowering periods. Many of the songs were marked by Hicks’ eccentric / amusing lyrics, which were alternately droll, sardonic, deadpan or faux-jive.

Fast-forward 40-some years, and Hicks still makes distinctive music.

“I definitely have a certain sound, and at this point I don’t feel a great need to change it,” says Hicks, who brings the Hot Licks to The Ark on Sunday. “I like writing in the swing style, with acoustic instruments, and the girl singers.

“Now, don’t get me wrong — I could all of a sudden come up with some unidentifiable electronic sound, and do something that doesn’t even sound like music if I had to,” says Hicks wryly.

“I could put out a backbeat that went, ‘ba, ba, bap!,’, and call it music. I have an attitude about some of the things passing as music at this point. But I spare myself from that, by not listening to the radio, so I don’t have to suffer with the rest of America. I like jazz and the old folk music — that’s what I’m most drawn to.” Back in the day, much of the focus was on the group’s two lively and striking female singers — Naomi Eisenberg and Maryann Price — who engaged in nimble, call-and-response vocals with Hicks.

Two of the group’s most memorable tunes of that period were the quirky “I Scare Myself” and “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away.” The title of the latter tune became a popular catch phrase of the era, at least among the initiated.

The Hot Licks split up in 1974, and Hicks pursued other musical directions. But he put together a new Hot Licks band in 2000.

Their latest album was a Christmas disc in 2010, but before that, their latest “proper” album was 2009's “Tangled Tales.” Of the various albums he’s released since reviving the Hot Licks concept in 2000, “Tangled Tales” is probably the most representative of the classic Hot Licks sound of the ’69-to-’74 era.

“I did want to stay really true to my sound on that record,” says Hicks from his home in Mill Valley, California, in the San Francisco Bay area. “A couple of my projects in the 2000s, to my ear, were over-produced, or gimmicky, with sound effects that I guess the label thought would give it wider appeal or something. I really wanted to stick with the original raw sound, and really hear the instruments, without doing a lot of overdubbing.”

One of the keys to that album’s great sound was the involvement of some Bay Area guest artists — mandolinist David Grisman, the great slide-guitarist Roy Rogers, blues-harp hotshot Charlie Musselwhite and cowboy-swing guitarist Bruce Forman.

“They’re all really fine solo instrumentalists, so they definitely added a lot,” says Hicks. “I don’t feel like Bruce got enough credit — he did all of those tasteful, jazzy 12-string solos.”

When the Hot Licks last came to The Ark in 2009, they were a six-piece, but this time around, they’re a quintet. They no longer have a lead guitarist, per se, “although I do some guitar solos,” says Hicks. One addition since then is violinist / mandolinist Benito Cortez, and his two female singers are still Roberta Donnay and Daria (who only goes by her first name.)

Hicks says he doesn’t really keep in touch with most members of the original Hot Licks, “but last I heard, Maryann was in Texas, singing in Western-swing bands, and Naomi was singing in some bands in Sacramento, and (guitarist) John Girton was up in Northern California — he’s a computer analyst now, but he still plays jazz guitar in the clubs.”

Looking back, Hicks says that the idea to put together the Hot Licks’ hybridized sound was not a conscious decision.

“I started out at age 11 as a drummer, and got into jazz, and Dixieland, and played in the high school big band,” recalls Hicks. “Jazz and big-band music were what I was really into, and we had a band that would play dances at the VFW, so we learned a lot of the jazz standards.

“Then, when I was about 20, I took up the folk guitar, because I got interested in that whole folk revival of the ‘60s, and became kind of a folk singer, just as a hobby, and would go to hootenannys when I was at San Francisco State,” he reminisces. “Then I hooked up with a couple of other folk musicians, one of whom was a female singer, and we became a trio, and my two musical interests sort of merged together, and I began writing songs that had a call-and-response thing between me and the girl singer.

“In fact, the first song I ever wrote was ‘How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away.’”

Regarding his often-sardonically-funny lyrics, Hicks says he was not inspired by any specific writers. “It’s just part of my own personality,” says Hicks with a wry laugh. “The ‘attitude’ songs, and the offbeat humor, as some people describe it, just comes naturally to me. That’s just how I tend to see the world.

“So, sometimes, when I am trying to write something serious, I will think of something funny, and I’ll think, ‘Nah, this song doesn’t need something jive like that, so I end up censoring that part of myself.”

Kevin Ransom is a freelance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com