Dan Hicks plays his way Musician changes little over 25 years

It’s a cosmic principle, like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time: You can’t listen to Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks and not have a grin creep across your face.

That breezy, jiggy, acoustic guitar. Those hipster lyrics, delivered by that sandpapery voice. Those chirpy female background vocalists. The package conspires to work on the foulest of moods and transform it into a sunny-daze buzz.

Hicks performs Saturday night at the Camden Opera House as part of a national tour promoting a new album that is jump-starting his career. Now 59, the new Hicks record, released last summer, is his first album of new material since the mid-’70s. “Beatin’ the Heat” sounds like no one told Hicks that 25 years have passed since “Striking It Rich” was in steady rotation on all the hip college radio stations.

How does one describe the Hicks sound? While some eclectic musicians sound like their influences have been put into a blender, Hicks betrays a genealogy that might include swing, some bluegrass and some gypsy jazz, with all the parts showing, like patches on an old coat. Like that flaky uncle who is charitably described as “eccentric,” Hicks makes few concessions to convention. He is what he is, and plays what he wants.

“I never really try to copy anybody,” he said in a recent phone interview from his California office. “As long as it swings.”

Along with “quirky,” “offbeat,” and even “off-center,” the word “campy” crops up often when people write about Hicks. He roundly rejects the “campy” label.

“It doesn’t apply to me,” he said. “It’s not accurate.” Though his approach to song writing and playing at times may evoke ’40s pop, Hicks does not mock or parody any style. And besides, having come of age in the late ’60s in San Francisco, his music clearly is filtered through post-hippie sensibilities.

At the same time, with song titles such as “Hell I’d Go!” and “I’ve Got A Capo On My Brain” on the new album, you know this guy’s got a sense of humor.

Hicks said the tongue-in-cheek nature of his music can be a double-edged sword.

“I want it to be uplifting, I want it to be humorous,” he said. “I want people to be smiling and laughing at the shows.”

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. April 28 show at the Camden Opera House are $19 in advance and $21 the day of the show, and are available at Wild Rufus in Camden, Grasshopper Shops in Rockland, Ellsworth and Bangor, Mr. Paperback in Belfast, Amadeus Music in Portland and The Music Bar in Bar Harbor.

Opening the show will be the folk-rock trio Maggi, Pierce and E.J.