music clip of the day

Delmar Allen “Dale” Hawkins, a rockabilly pioneer who gave the music world the hit “Oh! Suzy-Q,” died Saturday in Little Rock of colon cancer. He was 73.

Hawkins, originally from Goldmine, in Richland Parish, recorded his first hit in the KWKH Radio studios in downtown Shreveport in 1956 with then-15-year-old guitarist James Burton, who later went on to perform and record with Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, John Denver and Jerry Lee Lewis, among others.

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[Burton] recalled the guitar lick that became the hook for “Oh! Suzy-Q.”

“I wrote that little guitar lick when I was 14,” Burton recalled. “It got to be so pop in the club that Dale decided to write some lyrics to it and that became ‘Suzy-Q.’ It became a good record for him and (me) both.

“I was probably his first fan. He was a good guy, a good friend, and I think he lived life to the fullest, right up to the end.”

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Bassist Joe Osborn, whose career on hundreds of No. 1 and Top 10 hits includes work with Ricky Nelson, Johnny Rivers, the Carpenters, the Fifth Dimension and Bob Dylan, credits Hawkins with starting his career and transitioning him from the guitar to the electric bass.

“In 1956, I was working at Sears in the hardware department and Dale came in,” Osborn said. “‘Suzy-Q’ was already out and a hit, and he wanted me to play with his brother Jerry and his band at the Skyway Club. That’s how me and Dale started. If he hadn’t come in that day I’d still be at Sears, selling hardware.”

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In addition to his classic “Suzy-Q,” Hawkins recorded more than 40 songs on the “Chess” label. According to an obituary, he was the third entertainer to appear on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and was the first white artist to perform at the “Apollo Theatre” in Harlem and the “Regal” in Chicago.

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In the mid-1980s, after moving to Arkansas and entering into a second career as a social worker and counselor, Hawkins returned to live performances in a comeback concert at then-Cowboys nightclub in Bossier City, an event put together by Oil City producer Tom Ayres.

Hawkins, a Navy veteran of the Korean War, is in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

—Shreveport Times

Dale Hawkins (August 22, 1936-February, 13, 2010)

“Susie Q” (1956 [variously spelled over the years])

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“Little Pig” (1957)

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With James Burton (guitar), “Who Do You Love?”, live, Louisiana (Shreveport), 2008