TOM HAWK
Earning My Spurs
When
The Bloom Is On The Sage – Tumbling Tumbleweeds – Waltz Across Texas –
Hittin’ The Trail Tonight – Cool Water – She Taught Me to Yodel – My
Adobe Hacienda – Mexacali Rose – Dear Old Western Skies – Ridin’ Down
the Canyon – Except For you – Those Old Tex Morton Blues
Go back
about a hundred years. Tom Hawk is that guy singing old cowboy songs
outside Big Nose Kate’s in Tombstone, Arizona. For a guy from Maryland,
Tom has a very fondness for old-time cowboy songs. He sings thing with
reality. He sings them because he loves them. He sings them because
they are part of the beauty and simplicity that ‘real’ musical
experiences bring to all of us. Tom does not have a ‘western drawl.’
Any maybe that’s just right. He’s the ‘dude’ that’s singing cowboy
songs on a wooden sidewalk in Tombstone. Wyatt Earp might stop by, just
to hear what this ‘dude’ has to say with his music. Tom is also a
genuine yodeler. He uses the old Ernest Tubb song “Waltz Across Texas”
to demonstrate how this particular idiom of western music could, and
would, include a yodel. Gene and Roy could both use this music
enhancement to bring attention to the ‘messages’ they were carrying in
poetry set to music. Tom has also included a vital selection of old
cowboy songs, as well as movie-cowboy songs to his repertoire. I would
recommend that the acoustic guitar (he plays a Taylor) be filtered a
very little in the volume level. Listeners will want to hear the
‘voice’ and the ‘song’ and the message it is revealing. Western music
seems to be making a comeback of sorts today. That might be caused by
the incredibly high number of music fans who do not particularly like
‘country’ music of today, which has very little, if any, connects to
what country music has always been in the past. Removing the fiddle and
steel from country music is like taking the heart out of free speech.
It’s the same with the yodel. I’m sure there are a large number of
current recording artists who think yodeling is very passe. They
wouldn’t like Jimmie Rodger’s the ‘father of country music.’ Tom
definitely keeps it in his repertoire, and he sparkles on “She Taught Me
To Yodel.” He has a very different kind of yodel, and an interesting
one. He switches into a kind of double falsetto style. Greg Latta is
Tom’s biggest helper as the audio engineer. Tom realizes he is on the
early part of the road he is taking. He knows he is developing, and
with each new experience he is enjoying another step into the world of
music appreciated by so many people in America. “Traditional” music is
not yet dead in America, even though the current music industry wishes
it was. Tom Hawk is doing a good job keeping the ‘old’ style and
methods of making ‘story’ music. That doesn’t happen in today’s country
music. Tom also knows where to go to get good ‘western’ songs. Bob
Nolan (did you know he was only 16 years old when he wrote Cool Water?);
Gene Autry; and Smiley Burnett. All of them exceptional ‘western’ song
writers and singers. Keep up the good work Tom, off this one goes to
the Rural Roots Music Commission for their “CD of the Year” awards made
in late August.
www.music-savers.com – RECORD REVIEW BY Bob Everhart, President, National Traditional Country Music Association for Country Music News International Magazine & Radio Show