A little over a decade ago, in a break from his European career, Hicks found himself in Los Angeles visiting friends, who took him to a recording session of a major pop star. He happened to arrive when the session was encountering a moment of crisis, and quickly tweaked an arrangement for them that was threatening to derail the whole session. This bit of last-minute wizardry led to his being hired to lend his sophisticated musical skills to the freewheeling process that yield today’s pop hits.