Roy Hawkins: Blues All Around Me Part 2

The Thrill Is Gone 78

Hawkins’ 1950 and 1951 find the excellent guitarist Chuck Norris in the band and on the latter session pianist Willard McDainiel (Hawkins lost the use of an arm in a car wreck). Among the highlights from this period was the shuffling “Wine Drinkin’ Woman” with it’s lengthy rollicking piano intro, the rocking “Mean Little Girl”, the driving “Trouble Makin’ Woman” boasting wailing sax from Maxwell Davis and supple guitar from Johnny Moore. There were of course mellower fare including “You’re The Sweetest Thing” and gorgeous low down ballads like “Blues All Around Me” (”My home is like a graveyard/And my bed’s like a tomb/And I hope my baby will come home soon”) and the sublime “Gloom And Misery All Around” covered by Ray Charles in 1951 as “The Snow Is Falling.” Also cut during this period was “The Thrill Is Gone” which peaked at #6 on the R&B charts and many years later revived by B.B. King who took the song to #3 R&B, #15 Pop in January 1970.

Hawkins never achieved a hit of the same magnitude but Modern stuck with and he continued to record some first rate material. The 1952 session featured T-Bone Walker on guitar, prominently featured on terrific numbers like “Highway 59″, “Doin’ All Right”where T-Bone really cuts loose and the “Thrill Hunt” clearly intended to cash in on the success of “The Thrill Is Gone.” The two numbers from 1953, “Bad Luck Is Falling” and “The Condition I’m In”, are fine numbers unfortunately marred by way too much echo. Better were a 1954/55 session that produced the tough rolling blues of “It’ Hard” and the moody “If I Had Listened.” These would be Hawkins’ last songs for Modern until one final hook up in 1961 for Kent, which Modern had become by then. Hawkins was still in fine form, albeit with a more contemporary sound, on a stomping, impassioned cover of “Trouble In Mind” and a terrific update of his haunting 1948 number “Strange Land” which remained in the can until 1970. The band on these numbers is unlisted by it’s a good bet that the stinging guitar, heard to fine effect on the latter number, is by Lafayette Thomas.

In his absence from Modern Hawkins recorded little outside of a 1958 session for the San Francisco Rhythm label. The session lacked the intensity of his Modern sides although Hawkins was backed by the marvelous guitarist Lafayette Thomas who really shines on “I Hate To Be Alone” the session’s best number although “Baby, Please Don’t Go” retains some of the passion of his earlier sides. He also cut a one off side under the moniker Mr. Undertaker for the Los Angles Music City label in 1955 that I haven’t had the opportunity to hear.

Thankfully the Ace label has issued the bulk of Hawkins’ recordings on CD continuing from their first vinyl release in the early 1980’s. In 2000 Ace issued “The Thrill Is Gone” collecting some of his best numbers and followed it in 2006 with “Bad Luck Is Falling” which included uncollected singles, alternate takes and unissued sides. Hawkins’ four song session for the Rhythm label has been issued by the Westside label on the collection “Rhythm & Blues: 50’s Blues & R&B.”

Why Do Everything Happen To Me (MP3)