Ronnie Hawkins, the Band mentor and rockabilly star, dead at 87
nypost.comMystery Train,” adding that “The Hawk” was alleged to “know more back roads, back rooms and backsides than any man from Newark to Mexicali.”Hawkins didn’t have the gifts of Presley or Perkins, but he did have ambition and an eye for talent.He first performed in Canada in the late ’50s and realized he would stand out far more in a country where homegrown rock still barely existed.
Canadian musicians had often moved to the U.S. to advance their careers, but Hawkins was the rare American to try the reverse.With drummer and fellow Arkansan Levon Helm, Hawkins put together a Canadian backing group that included guitarist-songwriter Robbie Robertson, keyboardists Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel and bassist Rick Danko.
They became the Hawks, educated in the Hawkins school of rock.“When the music got a little too far out for Ronnie’s ear,” Robertson told Rolling Stone in 1978, “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.”Robertson and friends backed Hawkins from 1961-63, putting on raucous shows around Canada and recording a howling cover of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” that became one of Hawkins’ signature songs.But Hawkins wasn’t selling many records and the Hawks outgrew their leader.
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