Now that the European Football Competition for 2024 has ended and Spain has been crowned the winning finalists, it is time to consider Iona’s Song of the Week once again. I did consider picking a Spanish song, such as Bésame Mucho, Oye cómo va, La Bamba, or Guantanamera; however, I decided against the idea!
So, for this week's choice, I looked outside Europe and settled on the good ‘ol USA as my source. The individual I have picked was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, in October 1936 and spent much of his time in Venice Beach, California, where he was a primarily anonymous street performer, and in Europe and Australia, where he and his songs were better known and received. The singer/songwriter’s mother was a prostitute, and he never knew the identity of his father. He was sent to a reform school when he was 12 years old, and as a teenager, he drifted, hitchhiked, and stole his way across the States for the next dozen years, earning several stays in prison along the way.
For the next ten years or so, he drifted in and out of trouble around the country, living in Chicago, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Newark. Then, in the middle of the mid-1960s, folk music boom, he set out for California to try for a professional singing career. He recorded several tunes without commercial success, worked at odd jobs, and took up busking along the piers and storefronts of Venice Beach to supplement his income. He made ends meet by developing a small following of locals and tourists who would come to hear this Southern black man sitting on an overturned milk crate, playing blues and folk standards and a few original songs in his signature open guitar tuning and raspy vocal style.
Then, in the early 1970s, Bruce Bromberg, a musicologist and blues producer, ‘discovered’ the singer/songwriter, and they entered into a recording contract. Having recorded some dozen songs, the duo lost contact, and it wasn't until 1982 that Bromberg reconnected with the singer and persuaded him to release the previously recorded songs. The debut album Watch Your Step was a commercial failure but received rave reviews (notably a rare five-star rating in Rolling Stone)
In December 1984, the artist was released from the California State Medical Facility at Vacaville after serving 18 months of a three-year sentence on a child molestation charge (due to indecent exposure in the midst of suffering nervous breakdowns). He reunited with Bromberg in 1985 for a second album, Happy Hour, which featured more original songs and was again ignored in the U.S.; however, it won acclaim and sales in Europe.
Then, the English radio DJ Andy Kershaw encouraged the singer to come to the United Kingdom. In 1986, he moved to the resort town of Bridlington, where he enjoyed his first taste of commercial musical success, touring Europe (he played the Govan Town Hall in Glasgow!) and Asia. However, after four years in England, in 1990, the British government deported him back to the United States.
Despite the recognition and fame he received in Europe, the singer was restless and moved back to California in the early 1990s and again took on the role of a street performer. Several musicians and promoters encouraged him to record. Still, he did so occasionally and without much enthusiasm until he agreed to record an entire album for Geffen Records and producer Tony Berg. For this first major-label release, The Next Hundred Years, Berg added session musicians to the singer’s typical solo guitar-and-vocal arrangements for the first time and brought national attention and respectable sales to him (though, in typically contrary fashion, he claimed to dislike the result, preferring his unaccompanied versions!). He also claimed he could not play the blues because, with his damaged fretting hand—he wore a leather glove to protect his fingers - he could not bend notes!
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Based on this success, the singer/songwriter Ted Hawkins began to tour, commenting that he had finally reached an age where he was glad to sing indoors, out of the weather, and for an appreciative crowd! Sadly, he died of a stroke at the age of 58 on January 1, 1995, just a few months after the release of his breakthrough recording.
For the choice of song, we return to Ted’s second album and the title track, Happy Hour. This simple song has a wonderfully uplifting tune that conceals a sad story……
I've never heard of this guy; thanks for the info and song. Cool!