Scenes from Rompin’ Ronnie’s life
A brief oral history in three acts from The Hawk
Jan. 10, 1935, Ronnie “The Hawk” Hawkins was born in Huntsville, Ark.
Despite his origins, he has done more to advance Canadian music than perhaps any songwriter alive today. He’s played with Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, counted John Lennon and Bob Dylan as friends and once upon a time he hired a bunch of musicians as his support act, a group that would become The Band.
In 1964, Hawkins became a Canadian citizen and since then he’s battled the bottle and pancreatic cancer. Here he gives the highlights from his life in three acts. Act One: On the blues, meeting Carl Perkins and coming to Canada
“I made my first trip to Memphis in 1952 — the word rock ’n’ roll wasn’t invented yet, but I loved it, man: the music, the beat and that old boogiewoogie stuff. I was done.”
“I never played the guitar. My hands were broken all the time from all them bar fights.”
“Carl Perkins was a homebody. He’d done a lot of drinking, of course, but when he got real drunk, he would start crying — thinking about his little red-headed wife — that he had to go out and leave.”
“When I first got to Canada, it was a place called the Golden Rail. There were about seven or eight people there and when we started playing, they left in a hurry. The club owner said, ‘These ignorant hillbillies have run all my crowd off, get rid of them!’ I knew one Canadian, a musician, and the next night he got 65 people to come down to that club. They hadn’t had that many people on a Tuesday since the Second World War! Our shows were jumping for the next 10 years.” Act Two: On forming The Band, hosting John Lennon and figuring out what Bob Dylan means
“I lost one of the great piano players in rock ’n’ roll, he got married and you know what that does. But I brought in Garth Hudson and then Robbie Robertson came in as a roadie.
“At that time, we had Roy Buchanan; he taught Robbie, but it didn’t matter. He had the gift anyway. I had a club back in those days and they tore up my house trailer and wrecked one of my Cadillacs. But I needed their help. My throat couldn’t do all that soul stuff — when we got that lineup together, people started noticing.”
“In the end, I didn’t want to travel and play one-nighters. … I chose to make less money, stay at home and have kids, but they got good and started getting offers. It was only a matter of time.”
“I didn’t listen to The Beatles, but I knew they were making $1 million a minute. They came and stayed with me and installed 16 phone lines in one night’s notice. …”
“Yoko would be on the phone with Princess Margaret or Peter Sellers, while John was working on a song. It became Imagine. When they were living at my house, I got a lot of friends back. ‘Hawk, I was just driving by.’ Meanwhile, they lived in Buffalo.”
“I was asked to play Bob Dylan in that movie Renaldo and Clara. I didn’t know much about him. I was playing every night and couldn’t follow the folk scene. But he was fun to be around. Of course, no one ever gave me a script — we were winging it, but I didn’t mind. I knew he was the real deal because Gordon Lightfoot was a fan.”
“You ain’t never going to figure out what Bob’s going to do next. …” Act Three: On Canada’s Walk of Fame, his health and the good Lord
“Canada’s the promised land. She’s been real good to me. Where else can an ignorant old country boy from Arkansas come and make $3 million, spend five and not have to go to jail? You can’t try that in too many places without going to the penitentiary.”
“I started with a little bottle, ended with a big bottle and drank a bottle a day that way for about 10 years. The liver’s gone, the kidney’s gone and thanks to the diabetes, the legs are gone, too, but I believe in the big rocker. I’ll be 80 years old next year. I believe in God probably more than anybody else on this planet, but I’m real weary of the ground crew.”