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The Kershaw Sessions
Overview
The material on this CD was recorded for Any Kershaw's BBC radio programme over the years 1986 to 1989. It was released shortly after Ted's death. For UK fans this is the essential album. With suitably stark production and a great selection of material this is a class album right down to the sleeve notes. Sixty percent of the tracks are Hawkin's originals and because of this it superbly compliments Songs From Venice Beach (source material recorded 1985) with its preponderence of cover versions and similar production style.
Availability
Released 1995 on Strange Roots. Root CD 006. I have heard that this CD is becoming scarce in the US but it is available for download a EMusic. (Emusic is an MP3 site that purports to distribute MP3s legally).
Track Listing
- 1. Bring It On Home Daddy
- 2. Cold & Bitter Tears
- 3. Happy Hour
- (D MacKechnie/S Gillette)
- 4. Ladder Of Success
- 5. Sorry You're Sick
- 6. Bad Dog
- 7. All I Have To Offer You Is Me
- (Dallas Frazier/A L Owens)
- 8. Watch Your Step
- 9. Daytime Friends
- (Ben Peters)
- 10. I Got What I Wanted
- (Brook Benton/Margie Singleton)
- 11. Just One Look
- (Doris Payne/Gregory Carrol)l
- 12. Bring It On Home Daddy
- 13. Happy Hour
- (D MacKechnie/S Gillette)
- 14. I Started Loving You Again/All I Have To Offer You Is Me
- (M Haggard/B Owens)
- 15. Who Do You Love?
- 16. Dollar Tree
- 17. Ain't Got Nothing Yet
- 18. No Other Love For Me
- 19. Nowhere To Run
All tracks by Ted Hawkins except where noted.
© 1995 Strange Roots Ltd
Inlay Notes
In ten years of the Kershaw programme on BBC Radio One no other artist has made as massive and universal an impact on listeners as Ted Hawkins. Those early plays of 'Watch Your Step' seemed to bring the nation to a standstill. In a deluge of enquiries about Ted, a letter describing life-threatening fumblings in the fast lane of the M6 to find a pen in the glove-box was typical of the public response. It was the same for me. When John Peel first played 'Watch Your Step' in late 1985, I was on the phone to Dr. Excitement in his studio before the track had finished. Here was a singer who embodied everything I loved about music. And he was still alive.
A few months later, on impulse, at Nashville Airport, I bought a ticket to Los Angeles and, instead of flying home, set off to the West Coast to find Ted. The results of that first nervous visit to Ted's Inglewood home comprise the opening tracks of the album you are holding.It was obvious from the initial meeting that Ted was unique - a marvellous anachronism in an age when Soul had come to mean anything but. Musically, he'd soaked up everything he'd heard since the day in the early 1950's when Professor Longhair had paid a visit to the reform school where Ted was first incarcerated as a twelve year old. Sure, Ted was a blues singer but he had inside him an equal instinct for Country, Soul and Pop. (In a perfect world 'Cold And Bitter Tears','I Got What I Wanted' and 'Happy Hour' -truly great country songs - would have been covered by George Jones, making Ted a very rich man). He recognised no musical boundaries and, from his mouth, the most lightweight piece of pop fluff could be transformed into something intense and gripping.
Before Ted could be persuaded to fly for the first time in his life and come to the UK, there was a subsequent 'field recording' in Los Angeles, though the location certainly was not a field: Officially, I was in LA to interview the Eurythmics for Whistle Test but my hidden agenda was to get more songs out of Ted for radio broadcast. 'Happy Hour', the extraordinary 'Bad Dog', 'Sorry You're Sick' and 'Ladder Of Success' were recorded in a Eurythmics' hotel room. Ted turned up at the swanky Sunset Marquis, guitar in hand, on the bus.
They were queuing along Oxford Street when we arrived at the 100 Club on the night of the 3rd of October 1986 for Ted's British debut. I can't recall being present at a gig, before or since, where there was such a sense of crackling anticipation. For most of the afternoon I'd been tramping the streets of the West End to find Ted a replacement milk crate - his favoured on stage seating - to replace the one lost by the airline. In the dressing room Ted, huge and bare chested, was rising to the occasion; gargling and yodelling to warm up his voice, His presence filled the tiny room. And he was excited. On Venice Beach, Los Angeles, he'd been playing to half-interested passers by. The 100 Club could have sold out six times over and the atmosphere was more like you'd expect before a heavyweight world title fight than a gig a basement. The comparison wasn't lost on Ted: we made our way to the stage through the crowd, I went first to clear the path. Ted was right behind me, bouncing and shadow boxing, a white towel over his head. The roar was ear-splitting and seemingly endless when Ted climbed on the stage. There was only one appropriate introduction: "ladies and gentlemen, the heavyweight champion of the world...." Ted launched into 'Watch Your Step' and the place went ballistic.
Hawkins fever rolled across the country. On a package tour with Billy Bragg, Brendan Croker and myself as DJ, Ted swept all before him. OAPs and students stood before the stag, shoulder to shoulder, and their singing was often louder than the PA. In Newcastle, between of numbers, Ted couldn't resume his set because of spontaneous stamping and chanting of "Uncle Ted! Uncle Ted!" At Leeds University the crowd sang Happy Birthday. Still obsessively absorbent of everything around him, but by now equipped for the modern age with a ghetto blaster, Ted recorded every night of the tour. If the tapes ever turn up they'll make a hell of a live album. Meantime I hope you enjoy his BBC recordings.
Andy Kershaw
March 1995