Rock n Roll and Rick Cicalo

Yesterday, Rick Cicalo was laid to rest in Washington Iowa after dying of cancer. He was 54.

Fifty four years doesn't seem like a long time if you live life. The older we get the faster time flies and visable changes happen. Such as balding or gray hairs, or a pot belly getting bigger as time flies.

Rick was mayor of Washington since 2005 but before that was one of the premier bass players in the state. Playing alongside Bo Ramsey and The Backsliders for years while before that with Patrick Hazell with the storied Mother Earth Blues Band to which Ramsey was part of. In fact Cicalo with Steve Hayes on drums were one of the best rhythm sections to ever come out of the state of Iowa, or from the midwest. Cicalo also played on recordings with Dave Moore, Dave Zollo and the legendary Greg Brown.

The Mother Earth Blues Band was a bit too early for me but there remains a retrospective CD that I found at a pawnshop for a couple dollars and it gives a peek into the shows of Hazell and the ME Blues Band, a perfect example of white boy blues done with a Midwestern flair. That's the problem of being in a Midwestern state such as Iowa; nobody has a clue that there has always been great music going on. But around 1982, Hazell broke up the band and Cicalo cast his lot with Bo Ramsey's Backsliders (no relation to the Backsliders of the late 90s, they were from North Carolina) and Ramsey recorded a bunch of albums in the 80s and 90s. Cicalo can also be heard on the Ramsey blues tribute Stranger Blues which came out in 2005.

Perhaps Cicalo's greatest achivement turned out to be the mayor of Washington Iowa. From the newswire...
During his shortened tenure, Cicalo was an advocate for downtown improvements and the city's library. Cicalo was also a supporter of PAWS & More, Washington County's non-profit animal shelter.After noticing it had fallen into disrepair, Cicalo launched an effort to refurbish the grave of Ola Babcock Miller, the Washington native who began what became the Iowa State Patrol while she was the state's secretary of state in 1933. The gravesite was renewed, and a dedication held in August 2006.

When I heard about his passing, I didn't put two and two together till I read further that he was part of the Iowa City music scene before becoming Mayor. And that his two and half years (and then some) as mayor he did turn around the fortunes of Washington. He probaly could have done it in Washington DC as well but Rick was first and foremost a Iowan who cared a lot about the state and town and the music scene.

He will be missed.