RONNIE HAWKINS,
1935-2022

Ronnie Hawkins, the rockabilly progenitor whose backup musicians in the early 1960s would go on to form The Band, died Sunday. He was 87.

Neither location nor cause was disclosed, though it had been reported that Hawkins was ill.

The Arkansas native led bands in the South and was known for onstage antics such as backflips, handstands and his trademark camel walk. After a short stint in the Army, he became the proprietor of the Rockwood Club in Fayetteville, where the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison would perform in addition to Hawkins and his Hawks, which then included a teenage Levon Helm on drums.

In 1958 Hawkins moved to Toronto with Helm in tow and played bars and roadhouses in northern cities in the Midwest, Ontario and Quebec, eventually choosing to make his living on the road rather than through records. He would be based in Canada the rest of his life.

Hawkins, who signed with Roulette Records in 1959, had two minor hits in the U.S. that year—“Mary Lou” and “Forty Days.” In Canada, they reached the Top 10, as did two other Hawkins songs.

The Southern musicians in Hawkins’ band chose not to move north, with the exception of Helm, so he hired Canadians Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko as the new edition of The Hawks. They stayed until 1964, eventually backing Bob Dylan and then recording as The Band.

“The story of The Band began with Ronnie Hawkins,” Robertson wrote on Facebook. “He was our mentor. He taught us the rules of the road. Ronnie brought me down from Canada to the Mississippi Delta when I was 16. He recorded two songs I’d written and thought I might be talented. He tried me out on guitar and bass. The only problem was, I’m too young to play in the clubs they toured. I was too inexperienced, not a good enough musician yet and there are NO Canadians in southern rock 'n' roll bands. But I practiced until my fingers were bleeding, and he ended up hiring me against all odds.

“Ron prided himself in always having top-notch players in his group. Levon Helm, his drummer in the Hawks, and I talked Ron into hiring Rick Danko on bass and vocals, Richard Manuel on piano and vocals and Garth Hudson on organ and sax. Along with Levon and me, this became the magic combination. Ronnie was the godfather, the one who made this all happen. He had us rehearsing constantly into the wee hours. We balked at it, but we got better and better, our goal whether we knew it or not. He was not only a great artist, a tremendous performer and bandleader, but had a style of humor unequaled, fall-down funny and completely unique. Yep, God only made one of those, and he will live in our hearts forever.”

Hawkins famously hosted John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 during a world-peace campaign prior to their Toronto bed-in and played the role of Bob Dylan in Dylan’s Renaldo and Clara.

He was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in 2004.