Ted Hawkins – The Unstoppable Ted Hawkins
Grant Alden
Posted On May 1, 2001
Without peer — absolutely without peer — as an interpreter of the far-flung American songbook, Ted Hawkins was also a fine songwriter, an indifferent guitarist, and a complicated man. The Unstoppable began life as a board tape from a December 18, 1988, show in London, England, and suffers not in the slightest from that past.
Hawkins’ origins were of far more grit. Born in 1936 in deepest Mississippi, he was the son of a prostitute and not surprisingly spent time in Parchman Farm. In between stints as a hobo and god knows what, he cut his first single in 1966, but he spent most of his career in deep shadows.
Rounder released two LPs of his in 1982 and 1986, so well-received in England that he lived there at the time of this show. Ultimately he returned to California and his post as a busker on Venice Beach. More prison time followed allegations he molested a 13-year-old girl, and an encounter with law enforcement put an end to his stay in England. He died January 1, 1995, within a year of his major-label debut, The Next Hundred Years.
That quick biography gives little hint of the amazing, broken tenor Hawkins had, simultaneously sweet and raw, withholding nothing. Perhaps because he was principally a busker, his taste in songs was astonishingly broad, from Webb Pierce’s “There Stands The Glass” to “Zip Pe Dee Doo Dah” (as it’s spelled on this disc). His own songs came from deep poverty and great hurt, and they should make you cry.
Onstage, as revealed both by this present set and 1998’s The Final Tour, he was a gentle, charming man with a roaring, fearless voice. He seems not to have been a prolific songwriter, but the four originals common to both live documents (“I Got What I Wanted”, “Watch Your Step”, “Bring It On Home Daddy”, and “Sorry You’re Sick”) are among his best.
His voice has less growl in 1988, but no less certainty. And there is much to be said for his ability to recast (and rewrite) songs such as “Please Come To Boston” and “Country Roads” from schmaltz to blunt emotion. Curiously, he does much better with Hank Williams (“Your Cheating Heart”) than with Otis Redding (“Dock Of The Bay”), but there is never, to borrow his phrase, any shame in his game.
The Final Tour probably makes a better introduction, for there is more urgency and, yes, more fury to those concerts. But any recording of Ted Hawkins is a revelation, and this is a more than welcome addition to the canon.
