Sara Hickman’s Down-Home Irony

Artist: Sara Hickman.

History: Born in Jacksonville, N.C., and raised in Houston, Hickman, 26, took something of a humorous, performance-art approach to music while studying fine arts in college at Denton, Tex. After graduation in 1987, she moved to Dallas and became a regular in the local clubs with shows described by the Dallas Times-Herald as “a cross between a stand-up comedy routine and group therapy, with great music thrown in as a bonus.” The Dallas Observer named her the city’s best solo performer and best folk act of 1988. Carl Finch of polka-rock band Brave Combo saw her perform on a local cable television show and offered to co-produce a debut album, “Equal Scary People,” which his group’s Four Dots label released in early ’89. The record took the Observer’s 1989 best independent album award, while Hickman won as best acoustic/folk act and placed second behind Edie Brickell as best female vocalist and best songwriter. Windham Hill records included her song “Salvador” (an ode to Salvador Dali) in its “Legacy” anthology of new folk artists, and Hickman then signed with Elektra, which re-released “Equal Scary People” last fall.

Sound: The wacky, garishly toothy cover illustration of Hickman on the album is a tip-off that she doesn’t belong in the same category with with such straightforwardly earnest female folkies as Brickell and the Indigo Girls. Instead, she offers a hip but down-home, honest but irony-laden mix that fans of Michelle Shocked and k.d. lang should relate to just fine. “Equal Scary People” is an album full of winks, nudges and tickles, but Hickman also prominently displays soul inclinations that blend nicely with country influences in the arrangements of such songs as “500X (The Train Song),” a new take on the old railroad/sex metaphor. And there’s also soul in her voice, which helps make an effectively deadpan folk delivery of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World” more than just a cute feminist twist. For that, though, there’s a campy rumba of Little Peggy March’s “I Wish I Were a Princess.”

Show: Friday at McCabe’s.