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Hawkins put together a
Rock n' Roll band that year that included his very young fellow
Arkansan drummer, Levon Helm. The new outfit, Ronnie Hawkins &
the Hawks, was recording by the spring of 1958 and gigged
throughout the south and also up in Ontario.It
was the fact of being based in Canada late in 1959, got Hawkins to
start looking at some of the local music talent in Toronto area. The Hawks ended up as Levon Helm,
Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Rick Danko and
Richard Manuel. From 1959 through 1963, Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks were
one of the hottest Rock n' Roll bands working. As new members Danko,
Manuel, and Hudson came aboard, all Canadian, and replacing Hawkins'
fellow southerners, Hawkins lost control of the group, as they began
working together more closely. The Hawks parted company with
Ronnie Hawkins during the summer of 1963. The Hawks decided to stay together with their oldest
member, Levon Helm, out in front, variously renaming themselves
Levon & the Hawks and The Canadian Squires. A hook-up
with
John Hammond Jr.
and
Charlie Musselwhite for a series of recording sessions in New York led to the group's being
introduced to Bob Dylan. Dylan
changed The Hawks, but it wasn't always an easy
collaboration. In their 5 years backing Hawkins, the group had played Rock n' Roll, heavily influenced
by the sound of Chess and
Sun Records. Dylan had them playing electric adaptations of folk music,
while they'd spent years playing
Jerry Lee Lewis,
Chuck Berry,
Little
Richard and
Bo Diddley. In the spring of 1965,
they met
Arkansas Blues legend
Sonny Boy Williamson, and
jammed with the singer/Blues harpist one day, hoping to cut some
records with him. They hadn't realized it at the time, but
Williamson was a dying man and by the time The Hawks were
ready to return and try to cut some records with him, he had
passed on. Finally, a recording contract for the rechristened 'The
Band' was secured from Capitol. Levon
Helm returned the fold, and the result was Music From Big
Pink. By the
end of 1974, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson
worked with
Muddy Waters,
cutting an album entitled Muddy Waters Woodstock Album. The group marked the end as an
active unit with the release of the film The Last Waltz, directed
by Martin Scorsese, which was an
all-star affair pulling together the talents of
Ronnie Hawkins,
Muddy Waters, and others. In 1993,
The Band released Jericho, first album in 16 years, High on the Hog
(1996) and Jubilation
(1998).
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