DALE HAWKINS
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Recording years |
Main genre |
Music sample |
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1956–2007 |
Early rock’n’roll |
Tornado (1958) |
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- Oh! Suzy-Q
(1958)
DALE HAWKINS
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Recording years |
Main genre |
Music sample |
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1956–2007 |
Early rock’n’roll |
Tornado (1958) |
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Album
released: 1958 |
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Tracks: 1) Suzie-Q; 2) Don't Treat Me This
Way; 3) Juanita; 4) Tornado; 5) Little Pig; 6) Heaven; 7) Baby Baby; 8) Mrs.
Merguitory's Daughter; 9) Take My Heart; 10) Wild, Wild World; 11) See You
Soon Baboon; 12) Four Letter Word-Rock; 13*) My Babe; 14*) Back To School
Blues; 15*) Liza Jane; 16*) La-Do-Dada; 17*) Hot Dog; 18*) Every Little Girl;
19*) Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby; 20*) Lonely Nights; 21*) Someday, One Day;
22*) Cross-Ties; 23*) Yea-Yea (Class Cutter); 24*) Lifeguard Man. |
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REVIEW
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Nor do I understand fully just how many different
versions of the song Dale recorded in late ’56 / early ’57: there is
definitely at least one alternate,
much speedier take of the song in existence, but a detailed sessionography
shows at least three attempts, one from an early session at KENT Radio, and
two more from the KWKH Radio on February 14, 1957... bizarre, really. I do
believe that the speedy take is actually the original demo from ’56, which
confirms the status of ‘Susie-Q’ as the very first song Dale wrote and
recorded, although it did not become his first single (‘See You Soon Baboon’
holds that honor). The fame of ‘Suzie-Q’ essentially rests on two
facts: (a) almost twelve years later, it went on to become the breakthrough
song for Creedence Clearwater Revival, making John Fogerty ten times the star
Dale Hawkins ever was; (b) it is commonly referred to as «the song that
invented swamp rock», by which, I’m guessing, we mean «straightahead
rock’n’roll with native Louisiana features», and at least in this particular
case we can claim authenticity, since Dale Hawkins was indeed a native of
Louisiana. I mean, John Fogerty was not
a native of Louisiana, so if you say that «CCR played swamp rock», this means
you are actually obligated to be able to explain what swamp rock is, musically. Now Dale Hawkins — he could
just whip out his birth certificate, and that’d be it. Anyway, what really makes ‘Suzie-Q’ so different
from the general rockabilly styles going on around 1956–1957 is that its
melody is not based on country or R&B rhythmic patterns — that classic
opening riff is really straightahead blues, stuck somewhere in between the
Delta and Chicago, but sped up and accompanied by a heavy, dance-oriented,
jungley-sounding drum beat. The contrast between this fairly dark and
menacing groove, and the song’s almost elementary, nursery-level lyrics which
make the Ramones sound like Keats in comparison, is striking and unsettling
(had the song been dedicated to my
daughter, I might have contemplated going for a restraining order).
Additionally, lead guitarist James Burton (the same James Burton who would
later go on to become Ricky Nelson’s sidekick) plays a guitar break that is
very reminiscent of Scotty Moore’s «alarm siren» on ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’,
only even thicker and heavier — which makes the song a synthesis of blues
voodoo, teen lust, and rockabilly fervor. I’m not saying it is a synthesis
that makes a whole lot of sense,
mind you, but in early 1957, it was definitely a new word in pop music, and
the very fact that its legend would be carried on by both the Rolling Stones (in 1964) and CCR (in 1968) means there
is some objective magic bottled inside these two minutes. Unfortunately, Dale’s artistic tragedy was that he
was never able to expand upon the early success of the song. Although he put
out an entire slew of singles and one LP in the late 1950s, none of them
charted (at least, this is what it seems like; again, detailed information on
this is hard to find); and even though he wrote much, if not most, of his
material himself, you hardly ever find anything other than ‘Suzie-Q’ revived
by famous rock’n’roll artists of the future-in-the-past. One might try to
ascribe this succumbing to the one-hit-wonder curse to the spirit of the
times — after all, Dale arrived on the scene just a bit too late, at a time
when the original fascination with wild, raw rock’n’roll was beginning to
give way to the teen idol fad; and this could be partially confirmed by the
(admirable, in my opinion) fact that Dale Hawkins, in spirit, was the
ultimate rock’n’roller, refusing to sell out and go all sweety-pie on the
listener despite having what it takes in the looks and the voice department.
I mean, there is only one (one!) ballad on this entire LP — even Gene Vincent
in his wild gorilla days had much more — and just one or two more on the
large bunch of single A- and B-sides from 1957–1959 that constitute its bonus
tracks. But the real truth, I believe, is simpler and sadder: the
outstanding, innovative sound of ‘Susie-Q’ was more or less a fluke, compared
to Dale’s much more typical lack of artistic direction. If you arrange the 12 songs included on both the
original LP and the extra 12 tracks included on the remastered CD edition in
chronological order (following the abovementioned sessionography), you shall
see that for most of his career, Dale was taking cues from other people —
solid cues which he could twist in mildly fun ways, but never enough to make
them so much more interesting than the original ideas. After all, it was
hardly a coincidence that his first single was not ‘Susie-Q’, but ‘See You
Soon, Baboon’ — a song transparently influenced not only by the lyrical hook
of Bill Haley’s ‘See You Later, Alligator’, but also by Haley’s musical style
in general. The boppy rhythm, the catchy vocal melody, the exuberant sax
break, everything is in agreement with Haley’s formula, but the final result
is nowhere near as sharp or infectious as the ultra-professional formula of
Haley’s well-greased Comets. Which is, of course, all the more ironic
considering that ‘See You Later, Alligator’ itself should have been a
«swamp-pop» highlight — so Hawkins’ song comes across as a noble attempt to
win back those honors and vindicate the name of Louisiana; alas, if this were
an actual duel, we’d already be burying poor Dale, while Bill would be calmly
blowing smoke off his pistol. Likewise, the very first song recorded after the
definitive ‘Susie-Q’ session was ‘Baby, Baby’, a minor tweak on the
rockabilly sound of Elvis’ ‘Baby Let’s Play House’ — with louder, more echoey
drums, and a temptingly more «teeny» nasal voice, but they even forgot to put
in a proper lead guitar break. The B-side, ‘Mrs. Merguitory’s Daughter’, carries
those echoey drums even farther, generating a groove not unlike one of Bo
Diddley’s, but there is nothing interesting about the song past the first 15
seconds or so. And this is how it generally goes, almost ad infinitum. Arguably the best post-‘Susie Q’ recording session
for Dale took place in Chicago sometime in December 1957: that was when he
cut ‘Little Pig’, written by Aldine Mathis and W. M. Kilgore (of Johnny
Cash’s ‘Ring Of Fire’ fame), a fun little novelty number with one of the best
three-little-piggies-related innuendos in the business; getting to
impersonate the big bad wolf never sounded so suggestive before. Even better
is ‘Tornado’, which might be the second best example of that «swamp rock»
thing — it is essentially ‘Smokestack Lightning’, sped up and turned into a
rock’n’roll number, once again molding together the dark voodoo thing and the
dance energy shtick; too bad James Burton was not around this time to really
kick the song off into the stratosphere (guitar players Carl Adams, credited
as the songwriter, and Kenny Paulsen are merely competent). On the other
hand, the blues ballad ‘Heaven’, recorded at the same session, is quite
generic, stylistically reflecting some old-fashioned, doo-woppy Atlantic
Records approach circa 1951 or so. And on and on it goes. ‘La-Do-Dada’ goes for some
half-assed sweet Mexican vibe, but gets stuck midway between it and regular
pop, not too memorable or emotionally resonant. The classic blues tune ‘My
Babe’, appropriately recorded at Chicago’s Chess Studios, is nicely sped up
and has the historical distinction of featuring the first ever recorded solo
from guitar great Roy Buchanan, but is otherwise unremarkable. ‘Take My
Heart’ emulates Elvis’ style circa ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, a little rawer and
harsher, but not enough to claim its own style; ‘Wild, Wild World’ from the
same session is one-half Carl Perkins, one-half Gene Vincent, and who really
needs that? Finally, by 1959 (already after the LP had come out) Hawkins has
begun transforming himself into Buddy Holly — ‘Yea-Yea (Class Cutter)’
borrows some vocal hooks from ‘I’m Gonna Love You Too’ and generally follows
Buddy’s boppy pop formula; still later, he would record even sweeter pop
stuff like ‘Someday, One Day’ which could sincerely be confused with lost
Buddy Holly outtakes, if not for the voice. It all sounds nice enough, in the sense of
advertising Dale Hawkins as a nice fellow who might be fun to hang around
with and whose music, no matter which particular style he was playing in,
could never be a turn-off. But it is almost hard to believe that with songs
like ‘Susie-Q’ and ‘Tornado’, practically on the verge of carving out his own
style of early blues-rock, he would let himself down time and time again,
marketing himself off as a poor man’s Bill Haley, a poor man’s Carl Perkins,
a poor man’s Elvis, or a poor man’s Buddy Holly, and eventually becoming yet
another footnote in rock’n’roll history, missing out on the chance to explore
a gold mine right below his feet. Oh well; at least if you are hungry for
more Fifties’ rock, you won’t be let down by picking up Oh! Suzy-Q or any of several compilations that hold most of its
tracks — and given that most of them were recorded after the early strain of rock’n’roll had gone into slow decline,
we can at least be grateful to Dale for helping keep the flames alive at a
difficult time for kick-ass music. |
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