“That sounds like a werewolf to me,” Ron teased.
“Right. Same thing.” Roy then declared that he’d made a vow to marry a nun; only then would his wild ways be settled. I heard later he actually did marry a former nun. But Ronnie wasn’t willing to wait for that day. I recognized the expression on his face when something got too far out for his liking. “That shit’s too damn weird for me,” he finally declared. And like that, Roy was gone, and I was once again the lone entry in the guitar lineup. Ron gave me a long look. “You better start playing real good real fast, that’s all I can tell you.”
I now had three weeks before Fred left for good. I didn’t talk to anybody, didn’t hang out; I just listened to records and practiced nonstop in my hotel room. The Hawk liked my monastic dedication, assuring me he could hear an improvement in my playing night by night. But we were pressed by more changes. Willard wanted to leave—you could tell he needed to get back to Arkansas for some kind of family reasons, or maybe he was just homesick—so the Hawk checked out another piano player from Buffalo, a former bandmate of Rebel Payne’s named Stan Szelest, a handsome, James Dean–looking nineteen-year-old who could keep up with the high standard set by Willard and Magoo. Stan had a stern, serious side that made Levon and Ronnie want to push him to lighten up and at least act like he was having a good time, but I liked his natural intensity. It made me think he really meant what he played.
Right around this time Ron and the boys started coming to dinner at my mother’s house in Cabbagetown for a feast of her cooking. She’d make her chicken imperial, baked ribs with corn-bread dressing, a melt-in-your-mouth Chinese pot roast, mashed potatoes with sweet corn, her rouladen, Swiss steak, coleslaw, three-bean chili, potato salad with cheddar, meat loaf with dressing in the middle, cheese bread, tamale pie, shepherd’s pie, turkey pot pie, crispy pork chops, scalloped potatoes, Christmas goose, sausage rolls, four-hour pot roast, hot apple crisp with ice cream, lemon meringue pie unequaled anywhere, her extra-light pastry for strawberry-rhubarb pie, blueberry, peach, cherry, apple with a whole wheat crust to die for, pineapple upside-down cake, butter tarts, date squares, on and on to the point of paralysis. This was food for the soul, feasts of near-spiritual experiences, everybody moaning nonstop “oohs” and “ahhs” of satisfaction and delight. Ma blew their minds with every dish she made, and they weren’t shy about telling her so. “I don’t care where in the hell in the whole wide world you go,” Ronnie declared, “you ain’t gonna get better food than this. Damn, boys, I gotta go lay down before I faint.” Because of my mom’s deprived childhood, devoid of much appreciation, a few compliments went a long way.
Before long, the Hawks started kicking around the idea of staying at my mom’s house when we were in town, to get fed like this on a more regular basis.
—
When we headed south again, we were a new band. Stan was in, Fred and Will were out. With Fred gone for good, the Hawks felt a bit like a boat without a rudder. Fred had more miles on him than the rest of us, and we had looked to him for musical direction, especially me. In his own way, he’d become an important teacher and a major inspiration.
When I graduated to lead guitar, it felt like a natural transition to start playing a cream-colored solid-body Fender Telecaster, the guitar du jour for the likes of James Burton, Roy Buchanan, and of course Fred Carter Jr. So I traded in my red Gibson 335 and became a man. Glued to that Fender, during the next few weeks I went on a rampage of screaming overdrive and deployed all sorts of high-flying guitar tactics that I hoped would convince everybody that I was a force to be reckoned with. At least I had the right attitude, if not quite the skills. I didn’t possess the refined fingering and accuracy that Fred or Roy had, but neither did Bo Diddley or John Lee Hooker, two of my faves. I tried to make up for my rawness with aggression and excitement.
We were booked into the prestigious Cimarron Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Hawk wanted to put on a good show to give the people their money’s worth. As we played, I noticed right down at the front of the stage a young Indian guy with very long black hair, watching me and my fingerwork without blinking. He would nod his head slowly whenever I played some flashy lick. I could feel a musical communication between us.
After the show, as I was carrying my Fender Bassman amp down off the stage, he came up and said, “Let me get that for you.”
“That’s Indian Ed,” Ronnie shouted to me. “He’s a young guitar player from around here.”
I thanked Ed for helping with my amp. “My name’s Ed Davis,” he said shyly. “I love your playing. That’s just the way I want to play someday. Nobody around here plays like that—nobody. Where are you from?” I told him about my background on the Six Nations Indian Reserve, and boy, he couldn’t have been more thrilled to hear that. Not only could I wail, but I was also a damn half-breed from the Mohawk nation.
All that practicing and my willingness to take risks onstage had transformed my guitar playing. Along with my own blind ambition, I was becoming the youngest, whitest—well, not really that white—blues boy around. This was 1961 and, if nothing else, I was for sure early. Levon’s trust in me pushed me further. Almost daily he gave me reasons to believe. “Son,” he said in his down-home, brotherly way, “nobody’s doing what you’re doing. You want to know why? Because nobody can do what you’re doing.”
I wanted to believe him. In Ronnie Hawkins’s music I’d found a sweet kind of violence: it was hard and tough and rugged and fast—but tight. I was trying to do something with my playing that was like screaming at the sky. Levon understood on a deep level what I was going for, and in those moments when I doubted my progress, he showed the generosity and willingness to hold up a mirror and wink approvingly. If Mark Lavon Helm from Marvell, Arkansas, digs what I’m doing, I figured, it must be okay.
—
While we were in Arkansas, Ron had helped Levon buy a beautiful mint-condition 1956 Cadillac Coupe DeVille with a dark green roof and light green body. With his own ride, Levon (and by extension, me) could claim a little more independence. Having two cars for the band also gave everyone more elbow room when we traveled.
We played a round of colleges and graduation parties in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, and on that tour it struck me: as eye-opening as life with the Hawks was, I was missing something. Mixing with all these young people at their schools, I was witnessing a part of growing up—an educational experience—that musical roadrats like us would pass right by. It left me feeling empty. I grew deeply interested in reading and developed a thirst for words that would help fill the void left by dedicating my future to music. Southern writers felt most appropriate for the scenery passing me by on the road, and I loaded up on William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor. I read As I Lay Dying again, captivated by the fate of Addie Bundren and Faulkner’s fluid stream-of-consciousness technique. Ronnie thought my reading binge was making me too distant and heady. “Son, what the hell are you reading now? You’re gonna get your head all tangled up in those damn books.”
As summer set in, the Hawk informed us that we were headed back to Canada, but not to the usual Yonge Street or London haunts—we had been booked for July and August at a summer resort in Grand Bend, Ontario, on Lake Huron at the Imperial Hotel. “They’re building us our own quarters,” he announced, “an annex for us to stay while we’re there.” It had six bedrooms and our own bath facilities on top of the hotel, where we wouldn’t disturb anybody. We had never heard such an offer before, and the prospect of staying put in one location was appealing, especially at such a beautiful summer spot. Grand Bend had everything we needed, so let the party begin, and that we did. Just up the street lay the sandy shores of Lake Huron, with its clean and (for the Great Lakes) reasonably warm water. The area had several good food stands and restaurants, and there was always the sundeck on the roof of the Imperial Hotel, where you could lie out. It was an easygoing atmosphere all around, scores of girls around every corner. It was so relaxed that Ron didn’t
even show up at the club until it got crowded.
During that summer all seemed at peace, and yet the revolving door of the Hawks personnel never quite came to rest. Our first month at Grand Bend, there were rumblings that Rebel Payne might be moving on. His girl wanted to settle down and have a more normal life. We liked Rebel and wished he would stay, but deep down we already knew what he would choose when push came to shove. He wasn’t really a music addict like the rest of us.
At the same time, a strange tension began growing between Stan and Levon. Levon didn’t feel that Stan was a good bandmate. He thought he was too moody and distant. Stan didn’t give a shit what Levon thought and went his own way. One night the tension boiled over, and they really got in each other’s faces, which turned to pushing and shoving.
“If you guys really need to get this out of your system,” I suggested, “why don’t you take it outside?” They both tore off their shirts and said, “Let’s go.”
“I want to see this,” Ron cried. “If there’s gonna be some ass kicking, I want a front-row seat. Shit, we should be charging admission.”
Everybody marched outside, and Stan and Levon went at it, punching and wrestling, smacking and shoving, though to me they looked more like two blond modern jazz dancers. They threw some good shots and scratched each other up a bit, but you could see they were both more lovers than fighters. Finally they got winded.
“Have you had enough?” Levon groaned.
“Have you?” Stan responded.
They ended up shaking hands and calling it a draw, but it was pretty clear Stan had gotten the best of it. I tried to comfort Levon, telling him he came out on top, but he probably knew better.
On Sunday nights we would play in Port Dover on Lake Erie, at Pop Ivy’s Summer Gardens. My cousins from Six Nations, which wasn’t very far away, would come, which made me feel good. Ron would announce over the mic, “Some of Robbie’s kin are in the house, so if anybody gets scalped, you’ll know who did it.”
One night a little band from Simcoe, Ontario, opened for us. We had seen them before, and I remembered especially their leader, the youngest guy in the group, a good-looking eighteen-year-old kid who played rhythm guitar and sang in a voice reminiscent of Sam Cooke. You can just spot a musician who’s got the goods. You can sense it in an almost tribal way. Rick Danko had it. Levon and I nudged each other as he sang—this guy was a contender. And when we met him, there was a connection between his personality and his performance, a nervousness and excitement that came out as a kind of jittery electricity. We pointed him out to Ron, but the Hawk was already on it. With one of Rebel’s feet already out of the band, Ron wasted no time in offering the kid a job if he would learn to play bass.
Young Rick was overwhelmed by the proposition. It was an incredible opportunity but it would mean undoing his entire life. Despite his obvious musical talent, the band he led was little more than a hobby. He had a full plate back in Simcoe, with a serious girlfriend he planned to marry and a job as a butcher’s apprentice that promised a steady career cutting meat. Picking up with the likes of us meant taking a huge risk, but Rick could see something serious with Levon and me that held great appeal. And in the end he did the right thing: he blew off his past and gambled on the future. Over that summer in Grand Bend, Rick went from butcher’s apprentice to bass player apprentice, with Rebel, Levon, and me as his would-be teachers. Levon was spreading the word at the time about a new album called The Best of Muddy Waters on Chess Records. This collection of music would go on to indelibly influence the course of music in North America and England. Rick was half confused and half enchanted by it—his tastes ran more to R&B. I was already deep in the Muddy Waters club, and I wanted to share what I loved about this music with Rick, who appeared pretty open-minded about anything you threw his way. Levon, though, was a little impatient. He yearned for a rhythm-section partner who had that down-in-the-mud feel like Duck Dunn from Booker T. & the M.G.’s. Rick had a different way of playing bass, like he was skipping over ice. It made Levon strict with Rick’s learning curve when it came to our music. “Either you feel it or you don’t,” he declared. “Let’s not waste one another’s time.” Rick was also constantly restless and fidgeting, which drove Levon nuts. He’d have to get fully on board with the program for it to work, not just with the music.
Rick had entered a whole new world, one that was light-years away from small-town Simcoe. He was finding out quickly that this adjustment involved changing everything: his tastes, his abilities, his backward personality and unhip ways, and even his approach with girls. But boy, was he a quick study. He watched, he learned, he practiced. He was on a mission to turn himself inside out.
—
The next thing I heard, Ron had invited Roy Buchanan to come back for another tryout. At one point this development might have troubled me, but by now I had thicker skin and I believed in my own path. Ron enjoyed seeing a good knock-down-drag-out, whether it was a match in the boxing ring, a fight in a club, or musicians trying to play each other under the table. So he would set Roy and me against each other in a guitar duel to see how the sparks flew.
The house was packed at the Imperial Hotel club the night Roy was invited to sit in with us. Levon winked over at me during the set. “Go ahead, baby, do your thing, and do it well!” Near the end of the night, Ron called out for a down-and-dirty blues jam so he could see Roy and me really go at it. Roy kicked it off and began crawling around on the low strings like a swamp dog, deep and mysterious. I picked it up and started sawing out lower notes in a language usually saved for arctic wolverines. Roy grinned, enjoying this little tit-for-tat game. When he began changing the tuning of his guitar in the middle of a solo, I suddenly felt like Doc Holliday trying to sober up before a shoot-out with Wyatt Earp. Everybody played along with Roy’s amazing tricks, but then I came out swinging. I made my guitar cry like a baby, and suddenly this duel got serious. Roy kicked his guitar’s back pickup into ear-splitting overdrive until the audience was on its feet.
“Take it, son! Make that sucker scream!” Ron yelled at me over the crowd.
I stepped to the front of the stage and started playing notes that weren’t even on the fret board. The veins in my neck bulged, and sweat flew from my brow. Levon got on the bottom of the beat and kicked the rhythm section into high gear while prompting me on: “That’s it, baby! Here we go!” I hit a stuttered run-up to the top fret of that Tele, and the crowd jumped to their feet and screamed and whistled. I didn’t know how to get back down from that high note, so I stayed there, trilling on it until I got dizzy. My arms were flying, the guitar was airborne, my hands were a blur. The audience couldn’t stop clapping. Roy couldn’t stop grinning out of the side of his mouth.
He might have played better than me; certainly his solos were more technically advanced. But I stole the show. And nobody thought otherwise, not my bandmates, and especially not Ronnie. Levon raised a drumstick at me while the audience kept clapping for what felt like minutes. Of course, Ron loved the battle. I could tell he was terribly proud of me. Only Roy and I really understood what had just happened. We’d reached a musical wavelength and both of us had pulled the trigger.
The next day Roy packed up his things to make his departure. I walked downstairs with him and thanked him for his inspiration and generous sharing. Ron met us outside and mentioned to Roy that we were going down to New York soon to do some recording. Would he like to come and join us?
“I’ll be there,” said Roy. He made a saluting gesture.
I watched Roy walk toward the bus, duffel bag in one hand, guitar case in the other. There goes an amazing talent that needs to find a home, I thought.
—
Between sets at the Imperial one night, Rebel and I wandered across the main drag in Grand Bend to a little burger stand for a snack. As we ate, a guy walked up and introduced himself, mentioning that he played piano and sang in a band that had opened for us a while back called the Rockin Revols. I remembered him—he’d sung a
terrific version of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s song “Little Boy Blue.” Rebel made some crack about this guy’s “schnoz,” his long, pointed nose, but rather than take offense, the guy laughed. “Yeah, that’s why they call me Beak,” he replied. “My name is Richard Manuel.”
I shook his hand, but Rebel stood behind him making mocking gestures like he knew something I didn’t. Then I got it: Richard “Beak” Manuel was drunk—a laughing, fun-loving sort of drunk, but drunk nonetheless. Richard’s condition had puzzled me at first since nobody in the Hawks drank. We could hear Ronnie taking the stage, so we had to head back over.
“I’m not old enough to get in the club,” Richard called to us.
“You’re not old enough to be loaded either,” replied Rebel.
Looking back at Richard as we walked toward the club, I thought, I hope this guy doesn’t have a problem. Maybe it’s just one of those nights….
Coming after the 1950s and the big bang of rock ’n’ roll, the early sixties didn’t have quite the same fire. But there’s always magic out there, and Roy Orbison, Ernie K-Doe, the Shirelles, Timi Yuro, Ray Charles, Ricky Nelson, Ben E. King, and Patsy Cline kept the flame burning. Who would have thought Hank Ballard and the Midnighters’ song “The Twist” would come back and haunt the dance floors of the world? You couldn’t avoid it, and this craze would come back to haunt us as well.
The early 1960s were not a high point in the popular musical landscape. A bit of a drought, you might say, which meant that to find the good stuff, we had to dig deeper, trolling the further reaches of the AM dial, the stations I called “the secret airwaves.” One refuge was an old standby, WLAC out of Nashville, Tennessee, where DJs like John R., Herman Grizzard, Bill “Hoss” Allen, and Gene Nobles always got their hands on some wicked R&B and killer blues. The gospel-hour shows delivered too, with new and old gems that made us crank the volume just to feel the thunder.
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