Bman's Blues Report

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 ...

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 gr...