Hawkshaw Hawkins

Standing six feet six inches in height and gifted with a resonant baritone, the country performer Hawkshaw Hawkins—equally skilled as guitarist, songwriter, and stage entertainer—commanded enthusiastic followings across many seasons even though major hit records remained elusive. He first gained notice on radio, securing a regular slot on WWVA’s Wheeling Jamboree by 1946 and cutting his earliest sides for the King label at roughly the same moment. In 1953 he moved to RCA Victor, and by 1955 he had joined the cast of the Grand Ole Opry. Frequently introduced as “the man with 11-and-a-half yards of personality,” he delivered both lachrymose ballads and brisk novelty numbers with equal conviction on stage and on disc. After shifting to Columbia late in the 1950s and returning to King early in the 1960s, his sound edged nearer mainstream country fare, yet his career ended abruptly on March 5, 1963, when he died in the same plane crash that claimed Cowboy Copas and Patsy Cline.

Born Harold Franklin Hawkins on December 22, 1921, in Huntington, West Virginia, he entered show business at fifteen by winning a local talent contest on WSAZ. The victory led to steady work at the station and, toward the close of the 1930s, a move to WCHS in Charleston, where he often harmonized with Clarence “Sherlock” Jack. In 1941 he toured the country with a traveling revue; the next year he enlisted and was posted to the Philippines, performing on armed-forces radio in Manila. After his discharge he signed with King Records, where the modest success “The Sunny Side of the Mountain” soon became his signature song. Between 1946 and 1954 he remained a fixture on the Wheeling Jamboree while also placing four additional Top Ten country singles: “Pan American” (1948), “Dog House Boogie” (1948), “I Love You a Thousand Ways” (1951), “I’m Waiting Just for You” (1951), and “Slow Poke” (1951). The 1953 switch to RCA produced no comparable chart action, though his 1955 Opry membership broadened his visibility.

Joining Columbia’s roster in 1959, he reached number 15 with “Soldier’s Joy.” The following year he married fellow country singer Jean Shepard; the couple settled on a Nashville-area farm and began raising horses. Hawkins returned to King in 1963 and issued “Lonesome 7-7203” that spring. Although the single climbed to number one, he did not live to witness its ascent. Jean Shepard was pregnant at the time of the crash; their son, named Harold after his father, was born later that year. For three decades after Hawkins’s death his recordings received only scattered reissue attention, until Bear Family assembled the multi-disc retrospective Hawk in 1991, covering his RCA and Columbia years.