Ted Hawkins tribute 'Cold and Bitter Tears' celebrates legendary Venice Beach performer

COLD AND BITTER TEARS: THE SONG OF TED HAWKINS CELEBRATES LEGENDARY VENICE BEACH STREET PERFORMER  Tribute album due October 23 features James McMurtry, Kasey Chambers, Mary Gauthier, Tim Easton, Shinyribs and an unheard Hawkins original hidden track

Photo: Paul Natkin AUSTIN, Texas — Cold and Bitter Tears: The Song of Ted Hawkins, due October 23, 2015 on Austin-based Eight 30 Records, marks the first tribute album to the soulful Venice Beach street performer, a legend overseas later in his lifetime but a songwriter largely overlooked in the States. Hawkins simply sang like songs were stamped on his heart at birth. Evidence: High watermarks on the new record such as “Big Things” (James McMurtry), “Cold and Bitter Tears” (Kasey Chambers), “Sorry You’re Sick” (Mary Gauthier), “Who Got My Natural Comb” (Shinyribs) and several other classics. Hawkins himself backs the point with the album’s hidden track, the moving unreleased demo “Great New Year.” The Mississippi native, who died January 1, 1995 after a hardscrabble life and brief autumnal rise in popularity, might be gone but he’s clearly not forgotten. Local Americana power trio including singer-songwriter Kevin Russell (Shinyribs, The Gourds), artist manager Jenni Finlay (James McMurtry) and writer Brian T. Atkinson (author of I’ll Be Here in the Morning: The Songwriting Legacy of Townes Van Zandt) have lovingly co-produced Cold and Bitter Tears over the past year with sessions mostly at Austin’s Wire Recording. Russell has been particularly enthusiastic about the endeavor. “Ted Hawkins’ songs and his voice were infectiously uplifting to me upon first listen twenty years ago,” he says. “His unique style, both soulful and folkie, has haunted me and taught me — so much that I have been on a personal mission to tell the world about this national musical treasure. The opportunity to steward this tribute record is a ‘go tell it on the mountain’ moment for me that I hope can bring greater attention to the songs and recordings of Mr. Hawkins himself.” Hawkins earned a following as a longtime busker on the Venice Beach boardwalk but his unpredictable lifestyle prevented widespread notice. He made minor critical waves with his debut Watch Your Step (1982), an album that failed commercially but earned a five-star review in Rolling Stone. Hawkins scarcely recorded between Watch Your Step and his major label debut The Next Hundred Years (1994). Boardwalk passersby always noticed the singular singer belting his songs. They stopped cold. Listened. Amazed. “A lot of street musicians are really good, but there was something about him that was just pure presence,” says Jon Dee Graham, who witnessed Hawkins on the beachfront while recording in Los Angeles three decades ago. “Also, his songs aren’t like anybody else’s. He’s singing in this huge, soulful voice, ‘What do you want from the liquor store? Something sweet? Something sour?’ What? So wholly original.” Imagine blues and country and folk having no dividing lines. He died at 58 years old the following New Year’s Day as his star finally threatened to rise. “At the time of his death, Hawkins remained the greatest singer you’ve never heard,” the Los Angeles Times obituary read. “Hawkins clearly was transported somewhere else as he sang, and when he became aware of the audience, he seemed dazed: [Everyone] applauding wildly, some in tears from the sheer, sad beauty of his songs.” “When somebody plays in a way you’ve never heard anybody else play, that’s singularity,” echoes Dave Marsh, the iconic author and rock critic. “You might be able to imitate it, but you couldn’t copy it. It would be like trying to sing like Ray Charles. You can’t do that.” Track listing: “Big Things” • James McMurtry “Cold and Bitter Tears” • Kasey Chambers and Bill Chambers “One Hundred Miles” • Tim Easton  “Sorry You’re Sick” • Mary Gauthier “Strange Conversation” • Jon Dee Graham “Happy Hour” • Sunny Sweeney “I Got What I Wanted” • Randy Weeks “Baby” • Tina-Marie Hawkins Fowler with Elizabeth Hawkins “I Gave Up All I Had” • Gurf Morlix “Bad Dog” • Danny Barnes “Bring It on Home Daddy” • The Damnations “My Last Goodbye” • Ramsay Midwood “Who Got My Natural Comb” • Shinyribs “Whole Lotta Women” • Steve James “Peace and Happiness” • Even Felker  ### Hear a track from the album via The Bluegrass Situation: Mary Gauthier "Sorry You're Sick" http://bit.ly/1ONtoRE  Publicity: Cary Baker • Conqueroo • cary@conqueroo.com • (323) 656-1600 Radio: Al Moss • almosspromo@gmail.com

There Stands the Glass - Ted Hawkins

Ted Hawkins (October 28, 1936 – January 1, 1995) was an American singer-songwriter. He was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, United States.

Hawkins was an enigmatic figure through most of his career; he split his time between his adopted hometown of Venice Beach, California where he was a mostly anonymous street performer, and Europe, where he and his songs were better known and well received in clubs and small concert halls
Born into a poor family in Mississippi, Hawkins lived a difficult early life, ending up at a reform school by age 12, and drifting, hitching, and stealing his way across the country for the next dozen years, earning several stays in prison including a three-year stint for stealing a leather jacket as a teenager. Along the way, he picked up a love of music and a talent for the guitar. "I was sent to a school for bad boys called Oakley Training School in 1949", he wrote in a brief piece of autobiography . "There I developed my voice by singing with a group that the superintendent's wife had got together". After reform school, he ended up in the state penitentiary and was released at 19. "Then I heard a singer whose name was Sam Cooke. His voice did something to me." For the next ten years or so he drifted in and out of trouble around the country, living in Chicago, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Newark. In the middle of the mid 1960s folk music boom Hawkins set out for California to try for a professional singing career. He recorded several tunes without commercial success, worked at odd jobs, and took up busking along the piers and storefronts of Venice Beach as a way to supplement his income. Hawkins made ends meet by developing a small following of locals and tourists who would come to hear this southern black man, sitting on an overturned milk-crate, play blues and folk standards as well as a few original tunes in his signature open guitar tuning and raspy vocal style. Hawkins claimed the rasp in his voice came from the damage done by years of singing in the sand and spray of the boardwalk.
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