New Years Day 2021 will mark the 26th anniversary since the passing of one of the most unforgettable and indominable spirits in American music, Ted Hawkins. If you are not familiar with the name Ted Hawkins it is not surprising because his life and career was a study in how immense talent is no match for powerful life adversities of which Ted had more than his fair share. Born black and poor in Mitchell, Mississippi during the height of the Great Depression to an alcoholic mother and abandoned at an early age by his father, Ted's mother resorted to prostitution to survive.
With no father and little supervision, Ted became increasingly difficult to control, so his mother sent him to the Oakley Training School run by the Mississippi Human Services Department for what Ted would later describe as "misbehaving". Such facilitates are euphemistically referred to as reform schools or Boys Towns today, but this was Mississippi in the Jim Crow1940's and Ted was a poor Black child. Yet, ironically, it was at this unlikely place that Ted would have a seemingly chance encounter that would cause him to change course. A pattern that would follow him throughout his life.
For it was here that Ted's singing caught the attention of one of the facility's counselors, Henry Byrd. Mr. Byrd, more famously known as Professor Longhair, arranged with the school for Ted to accompany him when he went on the road to play gigs. It was not long before the Professor, (or"Fess") had him singing backup or as the warm up act. Ted would never return to Oakley. While some would point to this as some kind of divine intervention or anointment, it was Mr. Hawkins' strong sense of self-preservation, hard work and dogged perseverance that led to his glimpses of success. But success came to Mr. Hawkins in spurts and stutters, mainly abroad (e.g. UK and Europe). In his life's final irony, just as he was experiencing sustainable success in his native land he was felled by a stroke on December 28, 1994 and taken from us four days later.
Since today is Christmas I thought I would share a Christmas Eve story from twenty years ago that still has me shaking my head and is a reminder to all to keep trying because sometimes, something that is extremely improbable, the proverbial one in a million longshot, comes in.
I first encountered Ted Hawkins unknowingly and by sheer serendipity. By unknowingly I mean I did not know the name of the man I was watching and listening to. There was, however, one thing I did know about him, he made one hell of a first impression that was seared into your brain and once made you would never forget. It was November of 1985 and my father mentioned in passing he had a frequent flier voucher that was about to expire and he was too busy to use it. I was still in law school and though Fall semester exams were looming, I was not about to let the opportunity for a free trip anywhere in the continental U.S. pass me by. As it was November in Minnesota with a long winter ahead, I pondered warm destinations where friends lived.
I immediately thought of my old friend, Andy, who I attended high school with outside of Washington, D.C. back in the late 1970's. After high school I had moved back to Minnesota to attend the U of M and Andy went to OU (The Ohio University) in Athens. Following college graduation, Andy had made his way out to Los Angeles to successfully pursue a career in video editing and production. I had been wanting to get back in touch with my old friend for years but one of us was always busy or I lacked the resources to make it happen. Even though I would have less than three days to make the roundtrip from Minneapolis to L.A., a free trip is a free trip. I gave my pal a call and he graciously consented to my inviting myself for a visit.
I know the exact date I left on my trip to L.A. because my flight left Monday evening, November 17th. I know this because Andy was bummed that my flight was scheduled to arrive during the Monday Night Football game and his beloved 'Skins (Washington Football Club) were playing that night.
Being a native Minnesotan and life-long Vikings fan, missing some or all of a 'Skins' game was not a big deal for me. I suffered through 10 football seasons in the 1970s, arguably the most successful in the Vikings' franchise history, unable to watch my favorite team's games on Sundays. Instead, at that time, your only choice to watch a NFL football game on Sunday was to watch the local team's game and if it was a home game it was only televised if it was sold out. As I lived in Northern Virginia, my only choice on Sundays was to watch the Foreskins game. Naturally, this lack of choice meant I despised the Washington Football Club and especially disliked their cocky quarterback Joey Theismann. My problem with Theismann was two-fold: First, he played his college ball at Norte Dame and second, was the manner in which he left his wife and kids for tv celebrity Cathy Lee Crosby. Public opinion around D.C. felt sorry for the discarded wife and kids and to many it appeared that his football success had inflated his already hefty ego to the point where he felt he deserved a trophy girlfriend on his arm as he navigated higher social circles.
When Andy met me at LAX he looked agitated and anxious, I could immediately sense that there was something wrong, really wrong. So wrong I instinctively knew this was not about me interrupting his game by having to pick me up at the airport, rather, he tells me that Theismann had suffered a broken leg. Not only did he break his leg the injury was caught on live t.v. and was incredibly gruesome and horrific.
My old friend and die-hard Redskin fan was not expecting what next came out of my mouth: "YAHOO!" I screamed. Followed by "Ain't Karma a bitch!" and "I gotta see this for myself!" Bewildered by my reaction and in utter pain and dismay over the prospects of his favorite team snapping like a dried twig and blowing away in an instance, Andy gave me the thousand mile stare of a shell shocked soldier.
As we were closer to his work than his residence in West Hollywood, Andy drove directly to the video production company where he was employed. He assured me it was no problem as nobody would be there this time of night and besides he was recording the game there so as not to miss any of it while picking me up at the Airport. It also gave him the opportunity to show me the state of the art, professional audio visual equipment he used at work.
Due to the time of night, we had no problem finding a parking space right in front. Andy narrated a quick tour of the premises as he led me to what I would call a control or editing room.
We must have watched the play where Theismann's leg was broken a dozen times from multiple angles, focusing in and enlarging his ankle and watching the compound fracture at different speeds: normal, speeded-up but the best was definitely the super slow motion. The first couple times Andy replayed it were met with uproarious laughter punctuated by cruel comments and cat calls, but the more times we watched the quieter we got until even I was no longer getting off on it. "Seen enough?" Andy asks me. "Yeah, I can't watch anymore" I respond. What I was thinking, but kept to myself at the time, was that I was almost beginning to feel sorry for Theismann and that was a feeling I absolutely did not want so off we went to his house in West Hollywood.
The next day being a Tuesday my friend had to work. Before he left he asked if there was anything I wanted to do in the short time I had before my return flight on Wednesday. "Nah, I've been to L.A. as a kid and have done the tourist thing, I think I would like to see the beach and just kick back". Besides, it was mid November which is well into winter weather back in Minnesota and Minnesotans will always try to get a little tan if they are lucky to get a chance to escape the frozen tundra. "Okay", Andy said, "take the Santa Monica Bus Line all the way, past UCLA until you get to the end of the line and you will be at Venice Beach. Here is my work number call me this afternoon with where you are at and I will meet you there after I get off work ". "Cool" I called out as Andy headed out the door.
I hang out around my friends pool in the morning before heading out on my bus trip to Venice Beach. I kill time people watching, drinking fresh squeezed orange juice sold by the vendors that dot the landscape and scouting for a good bar to meet my friend when he gets off work. I eventually find what looks like the perfect place, so much so it could have been the proverbial beach bar out of a Keith Sykes song. Funny thing is I now cannot remember its name, but maybe there is an explanation for that, besides early onset Alzheimer's.
Around 4 PM I call Andy with my location and tell him I have a front row table overlooking the boardwalk (sidewalk?) so he can't miss me. I catch the waitress's eye and order a Tequila Sunrise and kick back to watch a glorious sunset slowly get consumed into the Pacific Ocean. I am in heaven and I can see why people flock to California to live.
It was at that moment of utter bliss that I see coming my direction, like an apparition, a large guy carrying a guitar case and a box of some kind. The closer he gets, little details start to emerge like, that is not a box, but a milk crate and I also notice he is wearing a glove with no fingers, something you would never wear in Minnesota for fear of frostbite. This is going to sound terrible, especially in hindsight, but I start praying to myself: "Please God, please God let the man pass by without stopping...Oh Please God!" You guessed it. Almost as if God heard my pathetic plea and decided to teach me a lesson, the guy sets up directly across from me in front of my view of the sunset. 
"Just great!" I think to myself. Although I am a huge music lover and idolize my favorite musicians like some of my friends worship sports heroes, I do not suffer fools. Besides I was looking forward to catching up with a good friend who I had not seen in years and last thing I needed was a bad mariachi band extorting me for tips, not to play, but to silence them.
As the man was setting up I could feel my whole body begin to constrict and wince for what surely was to come would be terrible. Then to my utter disbelief and astonishment what came out was good and the more he played the more you appreciated the man's talent. Unique arrangements of classic soul and r n b that balanced the original material, some of which although dark, were delivered with such earnestness and conviction that they became almost joyful. My friend arrived and he immediately asked, somewhat skeptically, if the guy was any good. By the end of the song he walked in on had finished the first words out of Andy's mouth were "Hey, this guy is pretty good!" It was not long before my friend and I became lost reminiscing and then we were off to the Apple Pan for burgers. My biggest regret to this day is not going over to the musician to thank him and slip him a tip.
Fast forward to some time after returning from my trip, my older brother walks into my room raving about this album he just bought and shows me the cover.
I couldn't speak for several moments, frantically pointing as my mind tried to process the disconnect. "I - I - I saw that guy on the Venice Beach boardwalk when I was out in California visiting Andy!" I stammered. "That makes sense..." my brother says, adding "...apparently he moved to England and is big in the UK and Europe these days".
I could finally put a name to the mysterious busker who so impressed me and armed with that knowledge I sought out everything I could on Ted Hawkins but there wasn't a lot out there. As time passed, "Watch Your Step" became one of the most cherished albums I owned and I never tired telling about my chance encounter with this enigmatic character. But what I really wanted was to see him live again. It was quite a wait. Then one day out of the blue, that same brother who turned me on to "Watch Your Step" and later "Happy Hour" walked in to my house clutching concert tickets and announced "I got us one of the front tables at the Fine Line for Ted Hawkins! Happy Birthday and Deja Vu!
So on October 7, 1994, my brother Pete and I are sitting at one of the front tables at one of the nicest music cafes in Minneapolis waiting for a street busker I had seen nine years earlier by accident while on a trip to California. Since that time this unknown street busker has gone over to and conquered the UK and Europe and had become one of my favorite singer songwriters. More importantly for the artist himself, this underdog of all underdogs was beginning to get the recognition he so richly deserved here, at home, in his own country. Surely, life can't get any better, sadder or stranger than this! Or Can it?
The Fine Line Show was a smash success and Ted had created quite a stir in the Minneapolis Music scene. The buzz on Ted had grown so loud, so fast, that they quickly booked Ted for another show in a larger venue, the Guthrie Theater in January 1995. My brother again rushed out to get tickets. Then, like a punch to the solar plexus, we get the tragic news of Ted's death on January 1, 1995 following a stroke he suffered on December 28, 1994. It is still so painful I had to stop as I type this and it took many years before I could listen to his music.
Life moves on and years pass and I can again listen to his music and again take great pleasure in introducing the uninitiated to the great Ted Hawkins. Then in 1999 my father passes away and the year before that my Uncle Harry passed away. The deaths in our fathers' generation got my cousins and our families nostalgic for the family Christmas gatherings we attended as kids. So in the early 2000s my cousin Hal graciously volunteered to host a Christmas Eve gathering at his home in suburban Minneapolis. Hal had gone on to become an executive for a nationwide video rental chain headquartered in the same suburb of Minneapolis where Prince built his studio.
As I am the youngest of my parents five children and both my parents were the youngest child in their respective families, for years I was always the youngest at family gatherings and all my cousins were considerably older and socialized with my older siblings. The point I am trying to make is I did not talk alot about things like music with my cousins except the older I got the more I got to know and respect the musical opinions of Hal's eclectic brother Tommy who was 10 years ahead of everyone and into bands like Television and the Ramones when they first came out. I laugh now looking back on our conversations where I would say "I can't understand how anyone can like that crap! They can't even play their instruments!" as he would patiently try and explain what the punk scene was all about with a bemused look on his face, that in retrospect, I now realize meant "I wish I could be there when this dumb kid has his epiphany". Hal's music tastes on the other hand went to the other extreme such as the Lettermen and his favorite the Four Freshmen.
So in this setting and with this background I give you the denouement to my Ted Hawkins story. I must have been off in a corner talking music with my brother and cousin Tommy trying to top each other with our vast music knowledge and who had the superior music taste, when I mention Ted Hawkins and how serendipity played such a big role not only in how I learned of him but in Ted's career as well.
It was at this point that my cousin Hal, the Four Freshmen fan, hearing the name Ted Hawkins from across the room, walks over and says to his hipster brother and 2 cousins: "Did you say Ted Hawkins?" and we all just kind of nod at him waiting impatiently for his pointless interruption of mistaken identity to be over. "Was he a black guy in his late 50's?" Now he has our attention and we all say "yes". "He wouldn't be a musician of some kind?" "Yeah" we respond wondering where in the Hell he is going with this. "Well...", says Hal, "... if we are talking about the same guy, I meet him once." Adding, "As a matter of fact, he performed a private concert for us in our conference room back in 1994 just before Christmas."
After the three of us pick our jaws up off the ground and I am able to get the wind back in my lungs, I startled everyone in the room. "What?" I shriek in disbelief. "There is No way!", I say. Hal explains very matter of factually, It was getting late in the afternoon the day before we close the office for Christmas vacation when the receptionist buzzes me and says there is a man here who would like to speak with whoever is in charge of selecting inventory for video tape rentals. "Does he have an appointment?" Hal asks. "No" comes the reply. "What's his name?" Hal asks.
"Ted Hawkins", comes the reply. "Never heard of him, but send him in anyway".
Ted explained how he was a musician and has a video he is promoting that he would like their stores to carry. "I know you might have never heard of me and that is why I would like to play something for you and your workers." Although no one have ever heard of him and despite everyone being in a hurry to start their Christmas vacation and attend to last minute errands, they agree and the remaining staff of less than 10 people gathered in a conference room for what may well have been Ted Hawkins last performance.
Shortly before his passing Ted recorded the following acapella version of a self-penned number, "Great New Year".
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