Ronnie Hawkins, an Arkansas rockabilly star who was a patron of Canada’s music scene, died after moving north with a few local musicians.
Wanda, his wife, confirmed to The Canadian Press that Hawkins had died on Sunday after a long battle with cancer. He was 87.
She said that he went peacefully and looked as handsome as ever.
Two days after Elvis Presley was born, Huntsville natives called him “The Hawk”. (He also called himself “The King Of Rockabilly” or “Mr. Dynamo” was a firebrand with a large jaw and stocky build.
He had minor hits with “Mary Lou”, “Odessa” in the 1950s and also ran a Fayetteville club where early rock stars such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Conway Twitty performed.
“Hawkins is my only friend who can make a sexy song like “My Gal is Red Hot” sound sordid,” Greil Marc wrote in his book “Mystery Train” about American culture and music. He also claimed that “The Hawk”, a man who lived from Newark to Mexicali, was said to know “more back roads, back rooms, and backsides than anyone else.”
Although Hawkins did not have the talents of Perkins or Presley, he had ambition and a keen eye for talent.
In the late 1950s, he first performed in Canada and quickly realized that he would be more popular in a country with little homegrown music. While Canadian musicians have often moved to America to further their careers, Hawkins is the only American to do the opposite.
Hawkins, along with fellow Arkansan Levonhelm, formed a Canadian backing band that included Robbie Robertson (guitarist), Garth Hudson (keyboardist), Richard Manuel (pianist), and Rick Danko (bassist). The Hawkins school taught them rock and they became the Hawks.
Robertson said to Rolling Stone that if the music was too loud for Ronnie’s ears, or he couldn’t hear when it was time to sing, he would tell them that only Thelonious Monk understood what we were doing. His greatest gift was his insistence on practicing and rehearsing a lot. We would often play until 1 a.m., then we would rehearse until 4.
Robertson and his friends supported Hawkins between 1961 and 1963, performing raucous concerts across Canada and recording a rousing cover of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Like” that would become Hawkins’ most famous song.
Hawkins didn’t sell many records, and the Hawks outgrew him. They teamed up with Bob Dylan in mid-’60s, and were by the end the decade superstars on their merits.
Hawkins settled in Peterborough, Ontario and had a few top 40 singles there including “Bluebirds in the Mountain”, and “Down in the Alley.”
Although he admittedly couldn’t keep up to date with the latest sounds, he was shocked when he first heard Canadian Neil Young. However, he became friends with John Lennon (and his wife, Yoko) in the 1960s. While they were in Canada, they stayed with Hawkins, his wife Wanda and their three children.
He later revealed to the National Post that he thought he was doing them a favor at that time. “I believed the Beatles were an English band that was lucky,” he said. I didn’t know much about their music. I thought Yoko’s music was silly. To this day, I’ve never heard a Beatle song. I can’t name a single song from ‘Abbey Road’ for 10 billion dollars. I’ve never even heard it. Never. John was so powerful. He was a great guy. He wasn’t one those hotshots, but he was a good friend.
