Ronald Cornett Hawkins OC[1] (January 10, 1935 – May 29, 2022) was an American rock and roll singer, long based in Canada, whose career spanned more than half a century. His career began in Arkansas, United States, where he was born and raised. He found success in Ontario, Canada, and lived there for most of his life. Hawkins was an institution of the Ontario music scene for over 40 years. He was influential in the evolution of rock music in Canada.[2]

Ronnie Hawkins
Hawkins at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival
Background information
Birth nameRonald Cornett Hawkins
Born(1935-01-10)January 10, 1935
Huntsville, Arkansas, U.S.
DiedMay 29, 2022(2022-05-29) (aged 87)
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Genres
Occupations
  • Singer
  • songwriter
Years active1956–2022
Labels
Formerly ofThe Band, Full Tilt Boogie Band, Crowbar, Bearfoot, Skylark, Robbie Lane and the Disciples, the Rock 'N' Roll Orchestra, the Revols
Spouse
Wanda Hawkins
(m. 1961)
Websiteronniehawkins.com

Also known as "Rompin' Ronnie", "Mr. Dynamo" or "The Hawk", he was one of the key players in the 1960s rock scene in Toronto. He performed all across North America and recorded more than 25 albums. His hit songs include covers of Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" (retitled "Forty Days") and Young Jessie's "Mary Lou", a song about a gold digger.[3] Other well-known recordings are a cover of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?" (without the question mark), "Hey! Bo Diddley", and "Susie Q", which was written by his cousin, rockabilly artist Dale Hawkins.

Hawkins was a talent scout and mentor of the musicians he recruited for his band, The Hawks. Roy Buchanan was an early Hawks guitarist on the song "Who Do You Love". The most successful of his students were those who left to form The Band. Robbie Lane and the Disciples made their name opening for Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks at the Yonge Street bars in Toronto,[4] and eventually became his backing band.[5] Others he had recruited later formed Janis Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie Band, Crowbar, Bearfoot, and Skylark.[6] Hawkins was still playing 150 engagements a year in his 60s.[7]

Early life

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Hawkins was born on January 10, 1935, in Huntsville, Arkansas,[8] the son of Flora (née Cornett), a schoolteacher, and Jasper Hawkins, a barber. In 1945, the family, which included Hawkins's older sister Winifred, moved to Fayetteville, where Hawkins was educated in the city's public schools, graduating from Fayetteville High School in 1952.[9] Musicianship ran in Hawkins's family; Hawkins's father, uncles, and cousins had toured the honky-tonk circuit in Arkansas and Oklahoma in the 1930s and 1940s. His uncle Delmar "Skipper" Hawkins, a road musician, had moved to California about 1940 and joined cowboy singing star Roy Rogers's band, the Sons of the Pioneers.[10] Hawkins' cousin, Dale Hawkins, the earliest white performer to sing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and the Regal Theater in Chicago, recorded the rhythm and blues song "Suzie Q" in 1957. Beginning at age eleven, Ronnie Hawkins sang at local fairs and before he was a teenager shared a stage with Hank Williams. He recalled that Williams was too drunk to perform, and his band, the Drifting Cowboys, invited members of the audience to get on the stage and sing. Hawkins accepted the invitation and sang some Burl Ives songs he knew.[11]

As a teenager, Hawkins ran bootleg liquor from Missouri to the dry counties of Oklahoma in his modified Ford Model A, sometimes making three hundred dollars a day.[12] He claimed in later years that he continued the activity until he was nineteen or twenty, and that it was how he made the money to buy into nightclubs. He had already formed his first band, the Hawks, when he graduated from high school in 1952, following which he studied physical education at the University of Arkansas, where in 1956 he dropped out just a few credits short of graduation.[11][13]

Hawkins then enlisted in the United States Army, but he was required to serve only six months, having already completed ROTC training. Soon after his arrival at Fort Sill in Oklahoma for Army Basic Combat Training, he was having a drink at the Amvets club when an African American quartet began to play their music. Hearing the first notes so stirred him that he jumped onto the stage and started singing. "It sounded like something between the blues and rockabilly ... me being a hayseed and those guys playing a lot funkier."[11] The experience caused Hawkins to realize what kind of music he really wanted to play, and he joined the four black musicians, who renamed themselves the Blackhawks.[11]

The group had been performing jazz/blues music similar to Cab Calloway's music of the 1940s, and Hawkins sought to introduce contemporary influences to their repertoire. With another new member, blues saxophonist A.C. Reed, they created some of the South's most dynamic music sounds. "[I]nstead of doing a kind of rockabilly that was closer to country music, I was doing rockabilly that was closer to soul music, which was exactly what I liked." The band encountered prejudice,[14] as many white people in the American South of the 1950s could not accept an integrated band and considered rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues the devil's music.[11]

The Blackhawks disbanded when his enlistment ended. Hawkins went back to Fayetteville, and two days later he got a call from Sun Records, who wanted him to front the house session band. By the time he got to Memphis, though, the group had already broken up. Nevertheless, he took advantage of the opportunity to cut two demos, Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and Hank Williams's "A Mansion on the Hill", but the recordings attracted no attention. The demo session guitarist, Jimmy Ray "Luke" Paulman, suggested that Hawkins join him at his home in Helena, Arkansas, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta region, a hotbed of blues, rhythm and blues, and country music, an offer which he eagerly accepted.[11]

Immediately upon arriving in Helena, Hawkins and Paulman found Paulman's brother George (standup bass) and their cousin Willard "Pop" Jones (piano) and formed a band they named The Hawks. Drummer Levon Helm, who had grown up in nearby Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, first played with the group at the Delta Supper Club in early 1957 when George Paulman invited him to sit in them for their closing set. Helm reminisced years later that Hawkins, accompanied by Luke Paulman, drove his Model A out to the Helm's cotton farm, arriving in a cloud of dust to talk to Helm's parents. Helm remembered him as "a big ol' boy in tight pants, sharp shoes and a pompadour hanging down his forehead." Helm listened to Hawkins negotiate an agreement with his parents, who insisted that he graduate from high school before he could join The Hawks and go to Canada. Helm practiced diligently on a makeshift drum kit to improve his skills, and when he graduated in May, he was good enough to play drums in the band.[11]

Hawkins's live act included back flips and a "camel walk" that preceded Michael Jackson's similar moonwalk by three decades. His stage persona gained him the monikers "Rompin' Ronnie" and "Mr. Dynamo".[9] Hawkins also owned and operated the Rockwood Club in Fayetteville, where some of rock and roll's earliest pioneers came to play, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty.[15]

With Helm's graduation from high school, he joined the Hawks and they went to Canada, where the group met success. On April 13, 1959, they auditioned for Morris Levy, owner of Roulette Records in New York. Only four hours later, they entered the studio and recorded their first record tracks. Their first single, "Forty Days", was a barely disguised knockoff of Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" with the song "Mary Lou" by Young Jessie on the B-side; it reached number 26 on the US pop charts, becoming Hawkins's biggest hit.[11]

After spending nearly three months in Canada, the band returned to the South, with their base in Hawkins' home town of Fayetteville. The band's gigs in the southern states were mostly one-nighters or short run performances in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Helm loved to drive, and would drive the band two or three hundred miles to the next show in Hawkins' old Chevy, which Hawkins eventually replaced with a Cadillac towing a trailer containing their equipment.[16]

Career

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Hawkins and the group had begun touring Canada in 1958 as the Ron Hawkins Quartet on the recommendation of Conway Twitty, who told him Canadian audiences wanted to hear rockabilly. Their bassist George Paulman was abusing liquor and pills, so Hawkins left him behind, and they played without a bass on their first tour of Ontario. Their first gig was at the Golden Rail Tavern in Hamilton, Ontario, where, according to booking agent Harold Kudlets, all the bartenders quit when they heard the band's sound and saw Hawkins's stunts on stage.[16] In 1959 he performed a number of live shows in the country and signed a five-year contract with Roulette Records.[15] Working out of Toronto, Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks cut the LP Ronnie Hawkins in 1959, and with Fred Carter, Jr. taking Jimmy Ray "Luke" Paulman's place on lead guitar, they cut another LP, Mr. Dynamo, the next year, both of them recorded on the Roulette label.[13]

He subsequently moved to Canada (becoming a permanent resident in 1964).[17] When he first came to Ontario he played gigs at places like the Grange Tavern in Hamilton, where Conway Twitty got his start, and made it his home base. In Toronto, where the Hawks dominated the local scene, Hawkins opened his own night club, the Hawk's Nest, on the second floor of Le Coq d'Or Tavern on Yonge street, playing there for months at a time.[7] After the move to Canada, the Hawks, with the exception of drummer Levon Helm, dropped out of Hawkins's band. Their vacancies were filled by Southwest Ontarians Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson.

David Clayton-Thomas, a Canadian and future lead vocalist of the American group Blood, Sweat & Tears, said he heard the Hawks when he got out of prison in 1962: "We young musicians would sit there by the bar at Le Coq d'Or and just hang on every note." This version of the Hawks, wearing mohair suits and razor-cut hair, were the top group among those who played Le Coq d'Or, a rowdy establishment at the center of the action on the Yonge Street strip in Toronto. They were able to stay out of most of the bar fights that broke out there almost every night.[16]

Robbie Robertson wrote in his 2016 memoir Testimony about how he and his band the Suedes had opened for the Hawks at the Dixie Arena in the west end of Toronto when he was fifteen. He described Hawkins spinning, flipping, and camel walking when Jimmy Ray "Luke" Paulman launched into a solo on his lead guitar, then tumbling and landing at Paulman's feet. He said of the show, "It was the most violent, dynamic, primitive rock 'n' roll I had ever witnessed, and it was addictive."[18] It was also the first time he saw Levon Helm, whom he described as a "young beam of light on drums" at the center of it all.[19]

The Hawks were playing at Le Coq d'Or for a couple more weeks, and Robertson hung around them as much as possible, hoping he could absorb some of their southern "mojo".[18] One afternoon he overheard Hawkins say he needed some new songs since they were going into the studio to record the next month. Hoping to ingratiate himself, Robertson stayed up all night and wrote two songs, "Someone Like You and "Hey Boba Lu", and played them for Hawkins the next day. The showman was impressed and recorded both of them for his new album, Mr Dynamo.[20][13]

A year later, in 1960, Robertson pawned his prized 1957 Fender Stratocaster to buy a bus ticket south from Toronto to Fayetteville, Arkansas,[21] to audition for a job with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "the most wicked rock 'n' roll band around". Levon Helm met the guitarist at the Greyhound bus station and initiated him into the ways of the Deep South.[22] This was Robertson's first time in the South, and he was hoping to take the place of Fred Carter, Jr., who had played with Hawkins's cousin, Dale Hawkins, and Roy Orbison. The band went to Levon Helm's home town of Helena in the Mississippi Delta, where Robertson spent some time at the Helms' family farm.[23]

Then he and Helm returned to the Rainbow Inn, a local motel in which Hawkins had ensconced the band, and practiced songs from the Hawks' repertoire. The motel was owned by a local ferry operator, Charlie Halbert, who had helped many musicians just starting out in the business, including Conway Twitty and Elvis Presley.[24] When Hawkins offered him the job, Robertson asked how much he would be paid, and Hawkins responded, "Well, son, you won't make much money, but you'll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra."[25] Hawkins, with Helm in tow, then went to England to promote his new record, where they met Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, who were on tour there. Meanwhile, still at the Rainbow Inn, Robertson tried to learn as much of the band's repertoire as he could, in an environment that he recalled as "rockabilly boot camp".[18][26]

Before leaving on the trip to England, Hawkins took Robertson to the Delta Supper Club, a notorious hangout in West Helena, where an irate patron had chainsawed the bar down the middle.[16] While waiting for Hawkins's and Helm's return, Robertson practiced, listening to stacks of records he had bought in Memphis with his first week's paycheck.[27] His haul of music included records by Ray Charles, bluesmen Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Junior Parker, and T-Bone Walker, rockabilly singer and guitarist Warren Smith, and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.[18] When Hawkins and his new Hawks lineup recorded the album Mojo Man in New York City in 1961, Robertson's lead guitar work showed the influence of other Chicago bluesmen such as Buddy Guy and Otis Rush as well.[28]

Along with Helm, all the Hawks left Hawkins in 1964 to form a group which came to be named the Band.[29] Robertson describes an event that led to the parting in chapter nine of Testimony. The decision came after Hawkins tried to prevent Rick Danko's girlfriend from coming to the shows. Hawkins wanted the group to mingle with the crowd, and Danko wanted to sit with her instead. Other issues included diverging musical interests, and pay. Hawkins was often absent from shows, leaving the Hawks to play without him. Levon felt they should be paid more when Hawkins didn't show up. There was a confrontation and things came to a head.[30] They went to work for Bob Dylan in 1965, touring with him for a year, and were his backup band on The Basement Tapes. Hawkins continued to perform and record, and did a few tours in Europe.[15]

In December 1969, Hawkins hosted John Lennon and Yoko Ono for a stay at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, during the couple's campaign to promote world peace. Lennon signed his erotic "Bag One" lithographs during his stay there.[31] Lennon also did a radio promo for a Hawkins single, a version of The Clovers song "Down in the Alley".[32] Hawkins later rode with them on a train to Ottawa to see then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Lennon also enlisted Hawkins as a peace ambassador, and Hawkins traveled to the border of China and Hong Kong with journalist Ritchie Yorke bearing an anti-war message.[33]

In 1970 Hawkins recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, laying down tracks for an ultimately unproduced album entitled Ronnie Hawkins. Among the studio musicians was Duane Allman, whose backing led two tracks from the session to be included on the Duane Allman Anthology - Volume II released in 1974: Carl Perkins' rockabilly hit Matchbox, and the Don Gibson country & western tune Don't Tell Me Your Troubles, featuring Allman on dobro. Four more tracks from that album were included on Skydog,[34] a 2016 Duane Allman retrospective: "One More Night," "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," "Down in the Alley," and "Who Do You Love." "Matchbox" was also included on Skydog.

In the early 1970s, Hawkins noticed guitarist Pat Travers performing in Ontario nightclubs and was so impressed by the young musician that he invited him to play in his band. Travers joined the group, but balked when Hawkins told him he wanted him to play "old '50s and '60s rockabilly tunes". Years later, Travers told an interviewer, "... he wanted me to play them exactly the same, same sound, same picking, same everything. For a 19-, 20-year-old kid, that wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. But he said, 'You can do this, son, and you'll be better than a hundred guitar players, because this is where it all comes from. You need to know this stuff. It's like fundamental.' And he was right". Travers later had a successful recording career and became an influential guitarist in the 1970s hard rock genre.[35]

In 1975, Bob Dylan cast Hawkins to play the role of "Bob Dylan" in the movie, Renaldo and Clara.[36] The following year, he was a featured performer at the Band's Thanksgiving Day farewell concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, which was documented in the 1978 film The Last Waltz.[37] Robbie Robertson said of it in 2020, "If there was anything wrong that night, it was that the cocaine wasn't very good." Hawkins sampled some of the powder and told the other performers that there was so much flour and sugar in it that they would be "sneezing biscuits" for three months afterward.[38] Hawkin's 1984 LP, Making It Again, garnered him a Juno Award as Canada's best Country Male Vocalist. In addition to his career as a musician, he become an accomplished actor, hosting his own television show Honky Tonk in the early 1980s and appearing in such films as Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate[39] alongside his friend Kris Kristofferson, and in the action/adventure film Snake Eater.[40] His version of the song "Mary Lou" was used in the 1989 slasher film, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II.[13]

He was profiled in the 1982 television documentary film The Hawk, directed by Martin Kahan.[41]

 
Hawkins in 2014

On January 10, 1995, Hawkins celebrated his 60th birthday by sponsoring a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, which was documented on the album Let It Rock. The concert featured performances by Hawkins, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Band,[13] and Larry Gowan. Canadian musician Jeff Healey sat in on guitar as well.[42] Hawkins's band, the Hawks, or permutations of it, backed the performers. All of the musicians performing that night were collectively dubbed "the Rock 'n' Roll Orchestra".[43]

 
Ronnie Hawkins's star on Canada's Walk of Fame

Later life

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In 2002, Hawkins was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which went into remission, which he attributed in the film documentary to a miracle by the 'Big Rocker' and Adam 'Dreamhealer' McLeod, a 16 year old healer from Vancouver, B.C.[44] His remarkable remission was featured in the 2012 film Ronnie Hawkins: Still Alive and Kicking.[45] In 2017, he moved from Stoney Lake Manor in Douro-Dummer, where he had resided since 1970, to Peterborough, Ontario.[46]

Hawkins died in the early morning of May 29, 2022, at the age of 87 from unspecified causes.[47][33] The cancer reportedly had never returned.[48][49]

He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Wanda, their two sons, Ronnie Hawkins Jr. and singer-songwriter Robin Hawkins, who had served as his guitarist since the 1980s and wrote his hit 'Can't Stop Rockin', and daughter Leah Hawkins, a singer-songwriter who had been his backup singer, and his grandchildren, Robin's four children, Tara, Troy, Jacob and Zack.[50][1]

Discography

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Albums

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Year Album CAN
[51]
Label Note
1959 Ronnie Hawkins Roulette [13]
1960 Mr. Dynamo [13]
Folk Ballads of Ronnie Hawkins [52]
1961 Sings the Songs of Hank Williams [52]
1963 The Best [52]
1964 Mojo Man [52]
1968 Ronnie Hawkins (aka The Hawk in Winter) Yorkville [52]
1970 The Best Roulette [52]
Ronnie Hawkins 12 Cotillion [52]
1971 The Hawk 91 [52]
1972 Rock and Roll Resurrection Monument [52]
1974 Giant of Rock'n Roll [52]
1977 Rockin' Pye [52]
1979 The Hawk United Artists [52]
1981 A Legend in His Spare Time Quality [52]
1982 The Hawk and Rock Trilogy [52]
1984 Making It Again Epic [52]
1987 Hello Again ... Mary Lou [52]
1995 Let It Rock Quality [52]
2001 Can't Stop Rockin'' Sony Music Direct [52]
2002 Still Cruisin' Hawk [52]
2021 Live at Fayetteville High School, 1962 Cosmic Cowboy [53][54]

Singles

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Year Single[52] Chart Positions Album
CAN
[55]
CAN AC
[56]
CAN Country
[57]
AUS
[58]
US
[59]
1958 "Summertime" singles only
"Hey! Bo Diddley"
1959 "Forty Days" 4 45 Ronnie Hawkins
"Mary Lou" 6 26
1963 "Bo Diddley" 8 117 singles only
1965 "Bluebirds over the Mountain" 8
"Goin' to the River" 34
1970 "Home from the Forest" 60 29 Ronnie Hawkins
"Down in the Alley" 20 30 75
"Bitter Green" 36 61 118
1971 "Patricia" 84 2 38 The Hawk
1972 "Cora Mae" 71 Rock and Roll Resurrection
1973 "Lonesome Town" 8 39 Giant of Rock'n Roll
1981 "(Stuck In) Lodi" 7 8 A Legend in His Spare Time
1983 "Wild Little Willie" 45 The Hawk and Rock
1985 "Making It Again" 44 Making It Again
1987 "Hello Again Mary Lou" 17 39 Hello Again ... Mary Lou
1995 "Days Gone By" 51 Let It Rock
2001 "Can't Stop Rockin'" 33 Can't Stop Rockin'
2002 "Friendship" 30 Still Cruisin'

Awards

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In 2002, October 4 was declared "Ronnie Hawkins Day" by the city of Toronto as he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame, in recognition of his lifetime contribution to music and his generous support of the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario and other charitable organizations.[39] He was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame at the Canadian Music Industry Awards on March 4, 2004.[39] His pioneering contribution to the genre was also recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.[1]

In 2005, Hawkins was awarded an honorary degree from Laurentian University.[1]

On May 2, 2013, Hawkins was named an Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada. His investiture was held on May 7, 2014. The citation reads:

For his contributions to the development of the music industry in Canada, as a rock and roll musician, and for his support of charitable causes. For more than 50 years, musician Ronnie Hawkins has demonstrated a strong devotion to Canada's music industry. Often referred to as the "father of Canadian rock n' roll", he was a key player in the 1960s rock scene, with his band The Hawks serving as a launching pad for a host of Canadian musicians. In addition to producing scores of singles and albums, he has performed in support of many charitable causes, notably the Peterborough Flood Relief and the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario.[60]

Other awards include a Juno Award for Making it Again in 1984, the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, presented at the Juno Awards of 1996[61] and a Special Achievement Award from the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers (SOCAN) in 2007.[61]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d King, Betty Nygaard. "Ronnie Hawkins | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Archived from the original on May 15, 2022. Retrieved May 30, 2022.
  2. ^ Quotes from Sylvia Tyson and Burton Cummings. Quotes and Tales Archived July 17, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. Ronnie Hawkins's Official Website. Accessed June 4, 2010.
  3. ^ "The Hamilton Memory Project" (Press release). The Hamilton Spectator- Souvenir Edition. June 10, 2006. p. MP43.
  4. ^ Hemmingsen, Piers (2016). The Beatles in Canada: The Origins of Beatlemania!. Omnibus Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-1-78759-073-1.
  5. ^ Edwardson, Ryan (2009). Canuck Rock: A History of Canadian Popular Music. University of Toronto Press. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-8020-9989-1.
  6. ^ Mersereau, Bob (2015). The History of Canadian Rock 'n' Roll. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-4950-2891-5.
  7. ^ a b Best, John (May 29, 2022). "Remembering Ronnie Hawkins | The Bay Observer". The Bay Observer. Archived from the original on May 30, 2022. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  8. ^ "Ronnie Hawkins". Canada's Walk of Fame. Retrieved June 1, 2022.
  9. ^ a b Cochran, Thomas (May 29, 2022). "Ronnie Hawkins (1935–2022)". Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
  10. ^ Abbott, Billie J. (August 5, 2020). "Dale Hawkins". Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Archived from the original on February 13, 2022. Retrieved June 1, 2022.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Harris, Craig (2014). The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 44–51. ISBN 978-0-8108-8905-7.
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  14. ^ Wood, Graham (2013). An A-Z of Rock and Roll - new and updated edition. An A-Z of Rock and Roll. p. 228. ISBN 978-1-105-32503-8.
  15. ^ a b c Homer, Sheree (2015). Catch That Rockabilly Fever: Personal Stories of Life on the Road and in the Studio. McFarland. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-7864-5811-0.
  16. ^ a b c d Tooze, Sandra B. (2020). Levon: From Down in the Delta to the Birth of THE BAND and Beyond. Diversion Books. pp. 56–68. ISBN 978-1-63576-702-5.
  17. ^ Hui, Ling (May 29, 2022). "Ronnie Hawkins dead at 87". Toronto Sun. Retrieved May 30, 2022.
  18. ^ a b c d Robertson, Robbie (2016). Testimony: A Memoir. Crown. pp. 6–28. ISBN 978-0-307-88980-5.
  19. ^ Crouch, Ian (December 8, 2016). "Robbie Robertson Offers His Story of the Band". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on December 9, 2016. Retrieved June 3, 2022.
  20. ^ Wright-McLeod, Brian (2018). The Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet. University of Arizona Press. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-8165-3864-5.
  21. ^ Forte, Dan (September 2011). "Robbie Robertson | The Many Sides of". Vintage Guitar magazine. Archived from the original on August 17, 2012.
  22. ^ Wheeler, Brad (April 19, 2012). "What Levon Helm called rock 'n' roll was deep-bottomed American music". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on November 16, 2013.
  23. ^ Lechner, Zachary J. (2018). The South of the Mind: American Imaginings of White Southernness, 1960-1980. University of Georgia Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-8203-5371-5.
  24. ^ Cochran, Robert; Hawkins, Ronnie (2006). "Long on Nerve: An Interview with Ronnie Hawkins". The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. 65 (2): 109. doi:10.2307/40038292. ISSN 0004-1823. JSTOR 40038292.
  25. ^ Stewart, John (June 1, 2022). "Opinion | 'Legend in His Spare Time': Ronnie Hawkins really was a dynamo". The Toronto Star. Retrieved June 3, 2022.
  26. ^ Irwin, Corey. "Ronnie Hawkins, Rockabilly Star Who Mentored the Band, Dead at 87". Ultimate Classic Rock. Archived from the original on May 29, 2022.
  27. ^ Paul, Paul (April 7, 2020). "Robbie Robertson: "While playing with Bob Dylan I remember thinking, 'They're going to wake me up tomorrow because all of this is impossible'"". guitarworld. Archived from the original on April 10, 2020.
  28. ^ Prown, Pete (August 2008). "Ronnie Hawkins – Mojo Man". Vintage Guitar magazine. Archived from the original on May 27, 2012.
  29. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (May 29, 2022). "Ronnie Hawkins, rockabilly singer and key figure in formation of the Band, dies at 87". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 30, 2022. Retrieved May 30, 2022.
  30. ^ Robertson, Robbie (2016). Testimony: A Memoir. Crown. pp. 133–135. ISBN 978-0-307-88980-5.
  31. ^ Marquis, Greg (2020). John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year Canada Was Cool. James Lorimer & Company. pp. 141–142. ISBN 978-1-4594-1541-6.
  32. ^ Hoskyns, Barney (2006). Across the Great Divide: The Band and America. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 219. ISBN 978-1-4234-1442-1.
  33. ^ a b Friend, David (May 29, 2022). "Ronnie Hawkins, cross-border rockabilly legend and endearing showman, dies at 87". The Toronto Star. Archived from the original on May 30, 2022.
  34. ^ |https://www.discogs.com/release/5356406-Duane-Allman-Skydog-The-Duane-Allman-Retrospective%7C
  35. ^ Freeman, Paul (October 5, 2011). "Pat Travers: Playing for the joy — Guitarist/singer comes to Club Fox on Friday". The Mercury News. Archived from the original on September 23, 2020. Retrieved May 30, 2022. Travers became a force in the hard rock scene.
  36. ^ Kinane, Ian (2021). Isn't it Ironic?: Irony in Contemporary Popular Culture. Routledge. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-000-37701-9.
  37. ^ Tobler, John (1992). NME Rock 'N' Roll Years (1st ed.). London: Reed International Books Ltd. p. 295. CN 5585.
  38. ^ Wheeler, Brad (May 30, 2022). "The legend of Ronnie Hawkins: Some of the best tales about the rockabilly artist and bandleader". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on May 30, 2022.
  39. ^ a b c Cochran, Thomas (2013). Welky, Ali; Keckhaver, Mike (eds.). Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music. University of Arkansas Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-935106-60-9.
  40. ^ Palmer, Bill; Palmer, Karen; Meyers, Richard (1995). The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 329. ISBN 978-0-8108-3027-1.
  41. ^ "The life of 'The Hawk'". Sault Star, September 17, 1982.
  42. ^ McPherson, David (2021). Massey Hall. Dundurn. p. 327. ISBN 978-1-4597-4501-8.
  43. ^ "Video: Let it ROCK!". theband.hiof.no. Archived from the original on April 4, 2022.
  44. ^ Hampson, Sarah (May 3, 2003). "Cancer-free, he's rompin' again". Globe and Mail. p. R3. Retrieved March 24, 2009.
  45. ^ "Ronnie Hawkins: Still Alive and Kickin'". Real2Real. October 9, 2012. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
  46. ^ "Ronnie Hawkins sells Stoney Lake estate to Mississauga family". The Toronto Star. December 8, 2017.
  47. ^ "Ronnie Hawkins, Who Gave The Band Their Start, Dies". BestClassicBands.com. May 29, 2022.
  48. ^ Ronnie Hawkins, the man who inspired The Band and played Bob Dylan has died, hotpress.com. Accessed October 24, 2022.
  49. ^ "Rockabilly pioneer Ronnie Hawkins dies at 87". NBC News. May 30, 2022. Retrieved May 30, 2022.
  50. ^ Mowat, Bruce (January 4, 2000). "The drill sergeant of Canadian rock 'n' roll". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on May 30, 2022.
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  57. ^ "Ronnie Hawkins - Country Singles". RPM. July 17, 2013. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  58. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 135. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  59. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2011). Top Pop Singles 1955–2010. Record Research, Inc. p. 393. ISBN 978-0-89820-188-8.
  60. ^ "Mr. Ronnie Hawkins". The Governor General of Canada. Office of the Secretary to the Governor General. Retrieved June 3, 2022.
  61. ^ a b "Ronnie Hawkins Biography". Ronniehawkins.com. January 10, 1935. Archived from the original on April 21, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2012.

General and cited references

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