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.
Listen to “Sunny Day” by Akon and Wyclef.—Luke (my 18-year-old son, on the phone the other night)
Akon with Wyclef Jean, “Sunny Day” (2008)
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One of the things I find intriguing about contemporary popular music is the widespread practice (particularly in hip-hop) of featuring guest artists, usually, it seems, people whose style and approach are very different from one’s own. Implicit in this is the notion that hearing two different musical personalities can make for a more interesting and rewarding experience than hearing just one. And including another artist opens a song up, making it less a fixed, static thing and more a vehicle for improvisation and variation, something subject to different takes, whose content and texture ultimately depend to a large extent on the identity and contributions of the featured guest.
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lagniappe
mail
My son called from Minnesota the other day to tell me that the weather was terrible, his car had been towed, he didn’t like his job, and he had a cold and a sore throat. Is it bad that the only motherly advice I could think to give him was to listen to Fats Waller [2/9/10]?
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The drummer’s comments were great [Brian Blade, 2/13/10]. You layin’ down a pretty good groove your own self, Richard.
Great drummers are like great basketball players—they lift everybody’s game.
Trixie Whitley with Brian Blade (drums) and Daniel Lanois, “I’d Rather Go Blind,” recording session, 2008
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Herbie Hancock (piano), Wayne Shorter (saxophone), Dave Holland (bass), Brian Blade (drums); live, Germany (Salzau), 2004
Part 1
(It may simply be a coincidence [or my imagination], but a four-note pattern that Herbie keeps repeating, with variations, reminds me, particularly at around 2:27 and following, of the beginning of Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Concerto [featured on 1/14/10].)
Part 2
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lagniappe
Johnny [Vidacovich, featured on 9/30/09], man . . . what an inspiration. His playing is so liquid but at the same time just the street of it is so intoxicating. Studying with him, the drumming aspect was never about fundamental things. It was never about the drums as much as it was about the music and playing with this melodic sensibility. That sticks with me even more than the thickness or the groove, which he never spoke about, really. That was like a given. If you have it inside of you, that groove, you need to lay it down. But also need to be able to sing through the drums.—Brian Blade
(If this clip stops, then starts, then stops again [as it sometimes does for me], the trick seems to be, as with other YouTube clips, to stop it yourself and allow the colored line at the bottom to fill in all the way before restarting it. It should then play without interruption.)
music clip of the day 