Maryann Price – Sweetheart (Waitress in a Donut Shop)

If that title looks familiar, we covered Maria Muldaur yesterday with her album Waitress in a Donut Shop. This is where Muldaur got the name for it. She released it a year after this version by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. Dan didn’t sing this but Maryann Price did. Her voice is very unique when she gets going. She doesn’t sound like everyone else.

Because of Christian, Randy, and CB, I have been really connecting with the jazz songs they have posted in the past and talked about. This is why I still blog because I love expanding my musical range and tastes. I will have to admit…as much as I like Maria Muldaur’s version of it…this version swings a little more.

I knew nothing about her until in the past few weeks when CB told me about Dan Hicks and his band The Hot Licks. She can easily cross genres and do about anything from Jazz to Pop to Swing. She has worked in many bands from Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks, Asleep At The Wheel, The Kinks, and more. I like her because she is different and caught my attention. Let’s find out a little about her.

At the age of 17, she was singing commercial jingles in her hometown of Baltimore. She moved on to sing jazz in Las Vegas and then moved to San Francisco in 1969. She soon joined Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks and along with Naomi Ruth Eisenberg (“The Lickettes”) as singers. 

The Licketts
Naomi Ruth Eisenberg and Maryann Price

In 1973 the band broke up and when they did…Ray Davies pounced on that opportunity. Davies asked her to come to England and record with the band. She stayed with the Kink’s for a year, touring extensively and recording…she sang on the album Preservation Act 2. When that was finished she returned to America and formed the Girtones with former Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks guitarist John Girton. In 1980 she joined the Texas band Asleep At The Wheel. 
 She has since gone on to a successful solo career based in Austin, Texas, and also reunited with Naomi Ruth Eisenberg for a live album in 2004 called Live At The Freight + Salvage.

Now back to the song at hand. This was on the Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks album Last Train To Hicksville released in 1973. I’ve been listening to this album on Saturday and it’s a combination of all kinds of music with Dan and the Licketts singing. I hear swing, jazz, pop, and more. The musicianship on this album is top-notch. The song was written by the songwriter Ken Burgan. Maryann is still going strong in Austin Texas.

Sweetheart (Waitress in a Donut Shop)

Sweetheart, but it doesn’t beat for meIt beats softly in love but not for meSweet lips I know I’ll never kissYou’re what I’m afraid I must miss

I’m a waitress in the donut shopI see him on his morning stopHe talks of love but he’s thinking of his sweetheartShe gives him a rough time

He gives me his dime and then partsSoft sighs, soft and pretty moansIn dreams I can make you my own

I’m a waitress in the donut shopI see him on his morning stopHe talks of love but he’s talking about his sweetheartShe gives him a rough time

He gives me his dime and then partsSoft sighs, soft and pretty moansIn dreams I can make you my ownIn dreams I can make you my own

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

19 thoughts on “Maryann Price – Sweetheart (Waitress in a Donut Shop)”

  1. I was at a conference in Berkeley in 1983. They scheduled entertainment for us one night, featuring Maryann Price and the Millionaires. Hardly anyone showed up – exhausted from the conference and just hanging out in their rooms. If I remember right, they moved the band to where the people were. We got a few more people, but I still had an almost private concert.

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  2. Thanks for the shoutout, Max. While I’ve started paying more attention to jazz, I still feel I’ve barely touched the surface. In any case, I LOVE how Maryann Price sounds in this song. You hit the nail on the head with your observation that it swings. You almost can’t resist grooving along as you listen.

    And, damn, I also need to check out Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks – cool band name, BTW!

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  5. It has a retro jazz feel even though I know it’s from the 70s. (It’s scary when you actually start counting back from 2025- on paper ’73 is just a number. Actually adding things up when going back to ’73 tallies up to a few too many. Oooh, please Sir, can I subtract ten years from somewhere around the ’90s ? That maths works for me, yessir it surely does.🙄)

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    1. Oh I’ll take that math for me as well! I wouldn’t mind for another decade lol.
      Yes it does sound like that.:. We now know where that cool name comes from!

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  6. Yup this is a keeper in my jukebox.

    Now here’s the thing Max You mentioned Davies scooping her for Preservation Act ll. All these years thinking the woman singing on ‘Scrapheap City’ sounded like Maryann and it was Maryanne. I devouered the record, the cover, te lyrics, the credits, no mention so how may decades later you teach smartass CB something about a piece of music he thought he knew inside out. No idea but makes sense. Two of my favorite music people being connected by Price. Thanks for the music lesson buddy, I have a big smile on my face.

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    1. Glad you liked it CB I was hoping I did her justice. I found it sad that more info wasn’t out on her and pictures as well. I’m happy that the next person will hopefully find this helpful with the information in one place.
      I listened to some of that Kinks album last night…that album I don’t know at all.

      You were right man…this one swings more than Maria’s and that is not a knock…just a fact…a little more authentic. I read nothing but good things about her which is cool.

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  7. The Licks (Naomi and Maryann) were such a big part of the act. Dan would soak up sensual affections from the duo like he was the most desired man on the planet. Plus they could both sing. It was such a good mix with the other members adding the great musical accompaniment. Just listen to the “walking bass”. She would sing this to Dan. I wanted to be him receiving her vibe. Golden. I could go into a deep look at this band.Lots going on.

    Ray on his concept albums took the Kinks in a whole other direction. Not received well commercially. Needless to say I was with them. I almost used ‘Scrapheap City’ on your Kinks takes. It would have been a real detour.

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    1. See…that is why I didn’t veer off CB to another song. I am not as familiar with them of course and I KNEW she was singing this song…but I didn’t want to pick a Naomi song. I was going to email you. I saw some videos of them…really cool and all without a drummer keeping time.
      You helped me out here…I was thinking of The Kinks Present a Soap Opera…when I thought of Preservation Act 2…when they did that TV show… but that was the Soap Opera one. I need to check these out. I need to go over both Preservation Acts plus those other two. I am familiar from Schoolboys in Disgrace on….but from Everybody’s In Show Biz to the Soap Opera I’m not. That will be my next Kinks project to listen to.
      That would have been a curve.

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    2. I first heard of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks with the release of Where’s The Money in 1971. Loved him, his music, his songs, his humor and everyone else in the band. He lead me to discover Django Reinhart, western swing and so much more. Harry Shearer on his L’Show radio program called him the hippest man in show business.

      Just to say wonderfully out there Hicks was, he wrote a song “How Can I Miss You When You Can’t Say Goodbye.”

      Maryanne Price has done lots of wonderful things. When she was with Asleep At The Wheel they recorded “Up, Up, Up.” This was years before Hicks recorded it.

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  8. Okay, one more Dan Hicks story, in case you don’t feature him or the Lickettes again. When he was touring after his “Beatin’ the Heat” album, he would announce a song from the album, or just say the phrase “beatin’ the heat” at some random moment. The Lickettes would instantly sing “Beat, beat, beatin’ the heat” in harmony, as though it were an advertising jingle. He never was able to catch them off guard.

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    1. That is so cool…I appreciate it. What gets me is he started off as a drummer yet they didn’t use one live. I will post something of them again I think. He gets more and more interesting the more I listen.

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  10. Pingback: Maryann Price – Sweetheart (Waitress in a Donut Shop) – MobsterTiger

  11. I was a fan during 1974/75 and in my retro review charts I’m A Woman has just cropped up sounding pretty great – I had it as the B side to Gringo In Mexico which was the A side in the UK, but all 3 tracks (including the essential Midnight At The Oasis) still sound great.

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