Ronnie Hawkins, who combined the gregarious stage presence of a natural showman and his commitment to turbocharged rockabilly music in a bustling career that lasted more than half a century, died Sunday. He was 87 years old.
Her daughter Leah confirmed her death. He did not specify where he died or the cause, although he said he had been quite ill.
Mr. Hawkins began performing in his native Arkansas in the late 1950s and became a legendary roadhouse animator based in Canada in the 1960’s, his music forever rooted in Bo’s primitive rock ‘n’ roll rhythms. Diddley and Chuck Berry.
Despite all his success, his main claim to fame was not the music he produced, but the musicians he attracted and mentored. Their backing musicians of the early 60’s, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko, formed the band, which supported Bob Dylan and became one of the most admired bands. influential in rock history.
But these musicians, like many of Mr. Hawkins, never lost their reverence for the man known as the Falcon.
“All of Ronnie’s style,” Mr. Robertson once said that he and his band played “faster, more violent and explosive than anyone had ever heard.”
Ronald Cornett Hawkins was born on January 10, 1935, two days after Elvis Presley, in Huntsville, Ark. When she was 9, her family moved to nearby Fayetteville, where her father, Jasper, opened a barber shop, and her mother, Flora, taught at the school. His music education began at the barber shop, where a shoe-polishing boy named Buddy Hayes had a blues band rehearsing with a pianist named Little Joe.
It was there that he began to drink the crazy music of the south, with blues and jazz filtered through country clippings and minstrel and medicine shows that toured the city. Soon, something new was added, the beginnings of rock ‘n’ roll, which was leaking from Sam Phillips’ Sun Records studio in Memphis.
Mr. Hawkins brought an element of danger to all of this: as a teenager, he had driven a refined Ford Model A that smuggled whiskey from Missouri to the dry counties of Oklahoma, earning up to $ 300 a day.
He formed bands, enrolled and left the University of Arkansas, joined the Army in 1957 and then left the same year, intending to do so in the music business. While in the military, he led a rock ‘n’ roll band, the Black Hawks, made up of African American musicians, a daring endeavor and usually welcomed to the segregated south.
The demonstrations he recorded with Sun after leaving the army fell through, but he and the guitarist of his Sun session, Luke Paulman, formed a band with Mr. Hawkins as the athletic leader who was engaged in backflips and handstands. Over the years, his trademark became the Camel Ride, an early version of what became decades later the Michael Jackson Moon Walk.
In 1958, country music singer Conway Twitty said that American rock ‘n’ roll bands could kill in Canada. Following this advice, Mr. Hawkins moved to a place he once said was “as cold as an accountant’s heart.” Toronto and other parts of Ontario became his home base for the rest of his career.
Mr. Hawkins liked to talk, perhaps with some embellishment, about regular parties, fights, sex, and drinks, which, he said, “Nero would have been ashamed of.” But there was nothing glamorous about being a rock ‘n’ roll musician who played non-stop at bars and roadhouses on a circuit centered in Ontario, Quebec, and U.S. cities like Buffalo, Detroit, and Cleveland.
“When I started playing rock ‘n’ roll,” he said, “you had two degrees of salary below a prisoner of war.”
He accumulated a loyal following based on his magnetic stage presence, the competition of his bands and the raw energy of his music. He had modest hits with “Forty Days,” his revised version of Chuck Berry’s “Thirty Days,” and “Mary Lou,” one of the top 30 hits on the U.S. charts.
Subsequent hit recordings include “Who Do You Love?” and “Hey Bo Diddley.”
Morris Levy, of the seal of Mr. Hawkins, Roulette Records, portrayed him as someone who “moved better than Elvis, looked better than Elvis, and sang better than Elvis.” He saw a gap that he thought Mr. Hawkins could fill in while the original rockabilly artists slowed down or went off. But Mr. Hawkins wasn’t so sure, as he saw clean teen idols like Frankie Avalon, Fabian, and Bobby Rydell take over from his tougher parents.
To the displeasure of Mr. Levy, Mr. Hawkins chose to own the road in Canada instead of becoming a recording star in the United States, building a paid career working non-stop, though he never built an epic record career. He also became known as a unique character and narrator.
“The Falcon had gone to college and could quote Shakespeare when he was in the mood,” Mr. Helm in his autobiography, “This Wheel’s on Fire.” “He was also the most vulgar and outrageous rockabilly character I’ve ever met. He would say and do anything to shock you.”
Mr. Hawkins was more than a consummate warrior on the rockabilly road. In 1969, he hosted John Lennon and Yoko Ono on his ranch outside Toronto during their world tour to promote world peace as the Plastic Ono Band. Bob Dylan was a longtime fan who in 1975 chose Mr. Hawkins to play the role of “Bob Dylan” in his experimental film and largely criticized “Renaldo and Clara”.
She also appeared in Martin Scorsese’s 1978 concert film “The Last Waltz,” as one of the guest stars who joined the band in the original group’s final performance at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on Thanksgiving in 1976. (The band reunited later). without Mr. Robertson.)
Mr. Hawkins growled and shouted through a memorable “Who Do You Love” performance with the band, fan-blowing Mr. Guitar’s guitar. Robertson with his cowboy hat as if to cool her off after a particularly torrid solo.
And he befriended his fellow Arkans Bill Clinton when he was governor, as well as a prominent part of the Arkansas entourage during President Clinton’s inauguration in 1992. Mr. Clinton also paid tribute to Mr. Hawkins in a 2004 documentary entitled “Ronnie”. Hawkins’ Still Alive and Kickin ”.
Mr. Hawkins did other performances, including a supporting role in Michael Cimino’s disastrous 1980 western “Heaven’s Gate,” and became a great and respected statesman in Canadian music. He invested wisely, lived as a rural squire on an extensive estate in front of the lake, and owned several businesses.
Still, he was a master at perfecting his image as a bad boy and playing typing, including his 1989 autobiography, “Last of the Good Ol ‘Boys.”
“Ninety percent of what I did went to women, whiskey, drugs, and cars,” she said. “I guess I only lost the other 10 percent.”
In addition to his daughter Leah, survivors include his wife, Wanda, and two other children, Ronnie Jr. and Robyn, and four grandchildren.