Ronnie Hawkins, a flamboyant rockabilly singer from Arkansas who became a supporter of the Canadian music scene after migrating north and forming the Band with a group of local musicians, has died.
Hawkins died Sunday morning following an illness, his wife Wanda confirmed to The Canadian Press. He was 87 years old when he died. she added over the phone, “He went peacefully and he looked as handsome as ever,”
The Huntsville native known as “The Hawk” (he also went by the nicknames “The King of Rockabilly” and “Mr. Dynamo”) was a hell-raiser with a large jaw and a stocky frame who was born only two days after Elvis Presley.
In the 1950s, he scored modest singles with “Mary Lou” and “Odessa,” and he managed a bar in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where early rock singers like Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Conway Twitty performed.
In the 1950s, he scored modest singles with “Mary Lou” and “Odessa,” and he managed a bar in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where early rock singers like Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Conway Twitty performed.
“Hawkins is the only man I ever heard who can make a nice sexy song like ‘My Gal is Red Hot’ sound sordid,” Greil Marcus wrote in his acclaimed book Mystery Train about music and American culture, adding that “The Hawk” was said to “know more back roads, back rooms and backsides than any man from Newark to Mexicali.”
Hawkins lacked Presley’s or Perkins’ talents, but he had desire and a keen eye for talent. In the late 1950s, he first played in Canada and understood that he would stand out significantly more in a country where native rock was still a rarity. Canadian musicians had frequently relocated to the United States to further their careers, but Hawkins was the first American to do the opposite.
Robertson told Rolling Stone in 1978, “When the music got a little too far out for Ronnie’s ear,” added, “or he couldn’t tell when to come in singing, he would tell us that nobody but Thelonious Monk could understand what we were playing. But the big thing with him was that he made us rehearse and practice a lot. Often we would go and play until 1 a.m. and then rehearse until 4.”
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