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Remembering Hawkshaw
Saturday Night Jamboree Pays Tribute To Huntington Native, Grand Ole Opry Star By: DAVE LAVENDER - The Herald-Dispatch
And you have to walk across when you hear the voice. The thick maple-syrup-rich baritone gallops out with "eleven and a half yards of personality," echoing through the empty auditorium. "Now don’t forget me little darling while I’m growing old and gray/Just a little thought before I’m going far away/I’ll be waiting on the hillside where the wild red roses grow/On the sunny side of the mountain where the rippling waters fall." "Sunny Side of the Mountain," the signature song of the late great Huntington native and Grand Ole Opry star Harold "Hawkshaw" Hawkins, plays on at his old elementary school gym, where the Museum of Radio and Technology is now housed and where a display case honors Hawkins’ country music career.
More folks may know after next Saturday when the memory of Hawkins rides again on radio as the Dawg’s Saturday Night Jamboree pays tribute to Hawkins, Adams County, Ohio, native Lloyd "Cowboy" Copas and Patsy Cline, who all perished together in a plane crash March 5, 1963. That country music show, steeped in the spirit of the long-gone WSAZ Saturday Night Jamboree, starts at 8 p.m. at the Jean Carlo Stephenson Auditorium at City Hall. A pre-show starts at 7 p.m., and both portions are aired on the radio on WDGG-FM 93.7. Remembering Hawk Huntington residents Mary Berry and Leona Davis hope to be in the audience next Saturday, if they can. The only living siblings of Hawkins (their sister Betty died about eight years ago), they love the idea of someone from his hometown paying tribute to their brother -- the vivacious singer who had been a Grand Ole Opry regular for eight years when the plane went down. There have been remembrances and honors in Nashville and Wheeling, where Hawkins has a star on the Wheeling Jamboree's walk of fame. Trips last year to Branson, Mo., and Nashville to the Opry brought warm embraces from country music artists who knew Hawk or who were influenced by his music and warm manner. But both said not much has ever been done or said here. Aside from his name on the Country Music Highway banner backdrop for WTCR’s Highway 23 Jamboree, Hawkins’ name is rarely seen or heard in his hometown. Jean Shepard, who was just back in Nashville after two months on the road performing, said by phone that she feels that is the case elsewhere, too. She feels the legacy of both her late husband and Cowboy Copas have always been in the shadows. "I get upset when they mention the plane crash, because the only one they want to talk about is Patsy Cline," said Shepard, who racked up 15 Top 40 hits between 1965 and 1970. "She (Cline) was great, but two other artists died on that airplane." The still-active member of the Grand Ole Opry said she feels Hawkins, who stood 6’6" in his hat and boots, has been under-appreciated as a singer and an entertainer. She feels the same about Copas, who spent plenty of time plowing the airwaves of WSAZ and WCHS before he replaced Eddy Arnold as the lead vocalist for Opry headline act Pee Wee King's Golden West Cowboys. "Cowboy Copas did what I called country rap," Shepard said. "He had this stuff that's like rap music today. He almost talked it."
Death took the deep-voiced singer when it seemed that the best was yet to come for his career. Hawkins had racked up four top 10 singles starting with "Pan American" in 1948, but his only No. 1 single, "Lonesome 7-7203," appeared on the charts three days before his death. Before joining the Opry in 1955, Hawkins (who blended up honky-tonk, country, boogie and blues) had honed his act to perfection on the Wheeling Jamboree, where he played from 1946-1954. Hawkins, who could play any traditional acoustic instrument with strings (fiddle, guitar, bass, mandolin), was loved by both men and women. Not unlike a modern-day Alan Jackson, Hawkins was liked by the men and also appealed equally to women. "He was strictly a man’s man," Shepard said. "He loved the outdoors and horses and hunting and target shooting and stuff like that. And he was very good, a real gentle man and a good family man." Country music historian Ivan Tribe, who still hosts an old-time music and classic country music show each Sunday at 5 p.m. on WOUL-FM out of Ironton, described his charisma and appeal in the 2000 book, "Mountaineer Jamboree: Country Music in West Virginia."
‘Absolutely a riot’ That charisma came right up to the surface early, says folks who remember the son of Icie Graham Hawkins and Alex Hawkins, who retired from Kerr Glass in Altizer. Many people remember the laugh and the grin. "That’s the way he was any time you see him, you’d see that smile ear to ear," said his sister Leona Davis. His mama had played organ at the church, and when a relative stopped over with a guitar, Hawkins had to have one. At age 13 traded five rabbits for a homemade guitar then taught himself to play. His sister Mary Berry said one of Hawkins’ biggest early influences was John Moore, a man who lived near them in the West End. "He had a band, and my brother would go down there and sit in the yard and listen to their music, and they invited him in and he started picking with them, and he picked up a lot with them," Berry said. "He started on the radio when he was quite young." A school mate, Juanita Lykins, 85, of the West End, remembers after-school sessions when Hawkins would take his guitar out and entertain the neighborhood kids. "I remember when he was probably only about 13 or 14 years old, we’d sit out on the driveway at Madison Avenue, and he had a whole gang around him," Lykins said. "He was absolutely a riot. All the kids loved him. He’d make them holler and laugh and would get that guitar out, and he would have more friends around him every evening. You could expect him and listen to him for three or four hours." Honing the honky tonk in Huntington By about age 16, Hawkins was heard for the first time on radio, WCMI out of Ashland. Hawkins won a talent contest on WSAZ and got a job at $15 per week. He and friend Clarence Jack teamed up to form "Hawkshaw and Sherlock," a duo who played regularly over WSAZ. With music calling, Hawkins left Huntington High School in his senior year. He and Sherlock traveled to Massachusetts in 1941 with a Wild West show providing the music. And they were going great before World War II called and both served their country. Jack came back injured and unable to perform while Hawkins, who spent 15 months of combat duty including Battle of the Bulge, came back from the war and signed onto the Wheeling Jamboree and King Records -- both in 1945. "I know that (Clarence Jack) always said if that hadn’t happened, he would have been right with him," Berry said. Jack is pictured with Hawkins at the Harveytown Elementary display. "They were real good together." Carrying on a family tradition After Hawkins left the Wheeling Jamboree, he met Shepard. They were married in 1960, three years before the crash. Their first son was named Don Robin (named after Don Gibson and Marty Robbins). A second son, Harold Franklin, also called Hawk II, was born a month after the crash. Harold still plays guitar for his mom and records, including one tribute to his dad called "Hawk’s Back" that was put out on the Ernest Tubb Record Shop label. That family togetherness and desire to keep Hawk’s memory alive remains. Within the next month, the boys are going into the studio with their mom to record some of Hawkins’ material. Not unlike the pairings of the late Hank Williams Sr. and Jr. in the studio, the family hopes to be able to record with different members singing harmony and lead on such songs as "Lonesome 7-7203," "1,000 Miles from Shore" and "Darkness on the Face of the Earth." Harold Jr. said he’s excited about the project, for which they have been sifting through many recordings to pull together the best. "Practicing with mom has been a real chore," Harold said, laughing. "She’s something else, and she’s a hard act to follow. We won’t say how old she is, but this coming November 21 is 50 years on the Opry, and she still sure can sing." Shepard said it is quite an undertaking, since some of the recordings are 45 years old. "We’re not going for an Academy Award," Shepard said. "We’re putting down some stuff that people would like to hear -- just some simple stuff that you would expect from me and Hawk." |
Originally Published In the Huntington Herald-Dispatch On March 13, 2005
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