Ronnie Hawkins
Referred to by Bob Dylan as “my idol,” rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins fronted the band The Hawks in the fifties, garnering a reputation of one of the wild men of rock and roll. Having been told Canada was “the promised land” for a singer, he emigrated in 1958. It wasn’t long before he’d bought a farm to house his equipment. “I had to have a place, I’m into old cars and old tractors, and I needed somewhere for them,” he says, of his place at Stony Lake, Ontario. As for the barn, fellow musician Lonnie Mack was the first to give it a whirl. “He played in it, he said it sounded really great,” says The Hawk, whose own band was soon rehearsing in the barn – at which point Ronnie Hawkins decided to fit it out for musical equipment. Rush rented the entire farm on a number of occasions (Ronnie and his wife moved out of the farmhouse for the duration), including to develop ideas for ‘Moving Pictures’.
Over the years, Ronnie Hawkins has recorded over twenty albums and innumerable singles, has acted and has hosted his own TV show. “To this day he’s a good friend and a great leader, with an uncanny ability to pick the best musicians and build them into first-rate bands,” says drummer Levon Helm, who played with The Hawks. “He was immediately likable, trustworthy, and just naturally an entertainer; one of the funniest guys I ever met.”
To his doctors he’s also a miracle – as documented in ‘Ronnie Hawkins: Still Alive and Kickin’, in 2002 Ronnie fought against pancreatic cancer, and won.