Music legend Ronnie Hawkins passed today.
A little story about when I met him.
From 2000 to 2003 I worked for four years on a TV series called DOC, a US network show produced in Toronto starring Country singer Billy Ray Cyrus. I worked as an Assistant Director during the first season and then as Assistant to the Producers for the next three.
During these 4 years on the show I got to meet many wonderful people. Billy Ray himself is an absolutely terrific guy. Amongst other things he is the main cause of my rediscovering my passion for photography. But that’s another story for another time. This one is about the music legend called the ‘Hawk’, Ronnie Hawkins.
My first encounter with him was in the 80’s on the big screen of a movie theater in Bombay called Sterling — a class act of a movie house where we saw many Hollywood films while growing up in the city. This film was a more off-beat one amongst the American films that normally played at the Sterling. It was Scorsese’s music classic “The Last Waltz”. For a whole bunch of westernized college kids in India, me included, it was more than just another entertaining film. It had become a cult ritual amongst the student community at South Bombay colleges to go watch this film every time it was shown (which was about every six to eight months). And it was always shown only at the Sterling during the Matinee slot that began at about 11:00 am. The film, the theater, the time-slot — they all were part of the ritual. It was like our “Rocky Horror Picture Show”. Well, sort of.
We had all been captivated by the Hawk belting out “Who do you love?” during his high-energy appearance in the film. As most here know I’m sure, the 1978 movie is a documentary about the last performance by the group “The Band”, during which they got on the stage with a wide array of special guests with whom they had collaborated earlier on. People such as Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Neil Diamond, and Ronnie Hawkins. It was Hawkins who had first brought in Robbie Robertson to his own band called “The Hawks” before Robertson eventually became the lead man for “The Band”. Bob Dylan referred to him as his “idol”, to John Lennon he was “Sir Ronnie”. At the time, who would have known one day I would meet ‘the Hawk’ and work with him on a TV show in Canada.
About a couple of days after I first met him in person somebody told me the story of Ronnie’s miraculous recovery after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in 2002. An outpouring of love cured the man, some people say. Soon after the diagnosis, friends such as Bill Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg, Paul Anka and David Foster threw an exclusive party for him in Toronto. The city declared Ronnie Hawkins Day, inducting him into the Walk of Fame and staging a four-hour tribute concert at Massey Hall. Others say his own party attitude healed him. Ever since arriving from Arkansas in 1958, Hawkins has displayed a singular talent for having fun, and for the electrifying showmanship that earned him the nickname “Rompin’ Ronnie.”
I first heard his voice as he was coming up the stairs of the DOC production office before I saw his cheery visage. He had just arrived in Toronto to play a guest appearance on the series as an old friend of Doc Cassidy’s (Cyrus) father from Montana. It was Billy Ray’s idea to get him on the show. He was coming to the production office for the first time to ‘check in’.
The same unmistakable spirit we had seen in “The Last Waltz” was evident in his presence. Right away everyone in the front office was smiling widely as the Hawk, with his trademark Stetson on his head, started joking around almost non-stop. “I’m a celebrity in my own room, dammit!” he declared, before breaking into a grin again with perfect timing. It was a great moment and I knew immediately that the next few days would be a lot of fun. “Rompin’ Ronnie” was here and I would be shooting him.
One of my many jobs on the show was to take digital stills and shoot video of the making of the series for the executive producers’ personal archives. All I had for the first two years was a Canon camcorder for both, stills and video, but I had a lot of fun while shooting and fell in love with digital. I discovered that still photos from this camcorder, despite the low resolution or maybe because of it, had an interesting character and texture that worked well for portraits. I got to shoot some terrific faces and also fell in love with portraiture.
I shot a bunch of pictures of Ronnie while he worked on DOC. Like with many other actors, I developed a little connection with the Hawk too as the guy lurking around quietly with a camcorder taking his pictures. We chatted a couple of times during lunch. But mostly I would just hang out and watch him. And shoot pictures. The one thing that grabbed me most about him right from the beginning was his hearty laugh and demeanor. I just could not help grinning, if not actually laughing, the entire time he was around. It was not very difficult to believe that this soul had triumphed over terminal cancer.
The picture posted here that I took I think captures the essence of the Hawk’s spirit.
RIP
