HAWKINS, JR (FAMOUS), DELMAR "DALE" ALLEN - Madison County, Arkansas | DELMAR "DALE" ALLEN HAWKINS, JR (FAMOUS) - Arkansas Gravestone Photos

Delmar "Dale" Allen HAWKINS, JR (FAMOUS)

Riverside (St. Paul) Cemetery
Madison County,
Arkansas

Delmar Allen Hawkins Jr.

August 22, 1936 – February 13, 2010

Singer Songwriter Entertainer TV Show Host Rockabilly Hall of Fame member

He was born in Gold Mine, Louisiana to Delmar “Skipper” Hawkins and Estelle Taylor Hawkins. His father left when he was only three years of age. Although he never knew his father he did know his father’s family. He spent much of his youth with his father’s family in St. Paul, Arkansas and attended a few years of school in St. Paul. In 1962 he married Paulette Hale this marriage produced two sons.

At the age of sixteen he joined the navy, serving a year and a half. He then moved to Bossier City, Louisiana to attend college. During his time in college he worked at Stan’s Record Shop in Shreveport, Louisiana. While working at Stan’s he met Leonard Chess of Chess Records/Checker Records. Chess’s Checker label was where he recorded his first hit, “Suzie Q”. Hawkins wrote “Suzie-Q” in 1957 with co-writing credits given to Stan Lewis and E. Broadwater. Hawkins later stated, in an interview, that writing credits were taken out of his control and the credits should actually be given to himself and James Burton. Hawkins’s records made the charts four times in two years: “Suzie Q” (1957), “La-Do-Dada” (1958), “A House, A Car and a Wedding Ring” (1958), and “Class Cutter (Yeah, Yeah)” (1959).

In 1960, Dick Clark helped Hawkins become the host for a television show called The Dale Hawkins Show which featured Rock and Roll music and teenage dancers on WCAU-CBS TV that aired in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s he worked in the production side of music. Working for well-known record companies such as: Stan Lewis’s Jewel and Paula record labels, ABNAK Records, Columbia Records, and RCA Records.

By the early 1970s his life took a downward spiral. He was addicted to prescription drugs. He and Paulette divorced. By the late 1970s he was in the Veterans Hospital battling his chemical dependency. By 1978 he moved back to Arkansas.

In 1989, AETN produced a 30 minute documentary on Hawkins. In the 1990s he worked as a volunteer disc jockey on KABF, a community radio station and was a featured performer at White Water Tavern in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the mid-1990s he was featured on VH-1’s show "Where Are They Now".

He continued to compose, record and produce his own music. His last record WAS titled: "Back Down in Louisiana" released in 2007.

He spent more than twenty years living in Little Rock, Arkansas working at his Hawk’s Nest Studio. He passed away in Little Rock on February 13, 2010 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in St. Paul, Arkansas.

Source information from:
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=4310

Obituary
Rockabilly singer Dale Hawkins, 'Susie Q' writer, dies at 73
By Terence McArdle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 18, 2010


Dale Hawkins, 73, a Louisiana rockabilly singer and record producer whose 1957 hit "Susie Q" became a rock-and-roll standard and was a hit for Creedence Clearwater Revival in the late 1960s, died of colon cancer Feb. 13 at a hospital near his home in Little Rock.

During his brief time in the limelight, Mr. Hawkins employed influential guitarists James Burton and Roy Buchanan. Mr. Hawkins's version of "Susie Q" was more raw, Southern blues than pop. He sang loudly and lustfully over Burton's distorted blues riff and an insistent cowbell.

Rolling Stone called "Susie Q" "the first rock 'n' roll record where the guitar counts for more than the song itself. Burton's lurching, fingerpicked gutbucket blues riff gives way to dirty-toned, scorched-earth solos after every verse."

Delmar Hawkins Jr. was born Aug. 22, 1936, on a plantation in Goldmine, La. After his parents separated, he and his siblings were raised by his grandparents.

Mr. Hawkins picked cotton and worked a paper route, then lied about his age to join the Navy at 16. In 1956, when his hitch was up, he started a band in Bossier City, La., with Burton. Stan Lewis, who owned a record shop in Shreveport, brought the band to the attention of Chess Records, a rhythm-and-blues label in Chicago. For Chess, Mr. Hawkins recorded the song "See You Soon, Baboon," modeled on the Bobby Charles hit "See Ya Later, Alligator."

The record failed to sell, and label owner Leonard Chess had reservations about releasing Mr. Hawkins's second record, "Susie Q." But a local disc jockey took a demo of the song to Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler. Wexler expressed interest in it, forcing Chess's hand.

Mr. Hawkins had to assign part of the song's writing credits to Lewis and E. Broadwater, a pseudonym for Nashville DJ Gene Nobles. The move ensured airplay but caused him to miss out on royalty payments.

Chess promoted the record slowly, one region at a time. The band took to the road, sometimes driving 800 miles between shows, with hasty recording sessions along the way. Mr. Hawkins often played in black theaters where he was the only white artist on the bill.

His other hits for Chess included "La-Do-Dada" (1958) and two other teen-oriented songs, "A House, a Car and a Wedding Ring" (1958) and "Class Cutter (Yeah, Yeah)" (1959). Later records for Chess and other labels were less successful.

Returning to Shreveport in the late 1960s, Mr. Hawkins turned to producing, crafting hits for Joe Stampley and the Uniques in addition to the Five Americans, along with the novelty song "Judy in Disguise" (1968) for John Fred. In the 1970s, Mr. Hawkins joined RCA Records in Los Angeles, working with singer-songwriters Michael Nesmith and Harry Nilsson.

After completing a drug rehabilitation program in the 1980s, Mr. Hawkins opened a crisis intervention program in Louisiana.

With belated royalty payments from CD reissues, he opened a recording studio in 1995 and reemerged with a series of self-produced albums, performing at rockabilly festivals in the United States and Europe.

Mr. Hawkins was a first cousin of Ronnie Hawkins, a rock-and-roll performer whose band included future members of The Band.

*Buried in Riverside (St Paul)Cemetery, Madison County, Arkansas

Contributed on 6/28/11 by nailgal123
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Record #: 552559

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Submitted: 6/28/11 • Approved: 2/26/16 • Last Updated: 2/29/16 • R552559-G0-S3

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