Ronnie Hawkins, rockabilly legend and mentor of The Band, dead at 87
msn.comBob Dylan on The Basement Tapes. Hawkins own success came a little earlier. His cover of Chuck Berry's 30 Days (entitled Forty Days) was a Top 10 Canadian hit in 1959, and other hits followed over the next decade, including versions of songs by Bo Diddley, Gordon Lightfoot, and The Clovers.
He also continued to mentor other musicians, including John Till and Richard Bell, who would later join Janis Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie Band, and guitarist Pat Travers, who went on to have a successful solo career.
In 1975, Hawkins played the role of "Bob Dylan" in Dylan's pseudo-documentary Renaldo and Clara. And the following year he was one of a cast of musicians to join The Band onstage at their farewell show, where he performed Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love?, a song he'd recorded in 1963 with The Hawks.
The performance featured in Martin Scorsese's documentary of the show, The Last Waltz. In 2002 Hawkins was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame, and two years later he was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame.
Read more on msn.com