Rockabilly Author of ‘Susie Q’

Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos -Dale Hawkins performing at a 2007 music festival in New York.

Dale Hawkins, a songwriter and singer whose rockabilly repertory included the 1957 hit “Susie Q,“ a bandstand classic for generations of rockers, died on Saturday in Little Rock, Ark. He was 73.The cause was colon cancer, his Web site said.

Mr. Hawkins drew deeply from the heavy blues sounds of South Louisiana to create a classic of what is sometimes called swamp rock. Just as important were the explosive riff supplied by James Burton, one of rock’s first superstar guitarists, and the gong of a cowbell at the song’s beginning. “Susie Q” (the title was also sometimes rendered as “Susie-Q,” “Suzy-Q” and other variations; neither Mr. Hawkins nor his record company was consistent) reached No. 27 on the Billboard chart.

But the song’s influence can be measured in the many bands that have made it a rock anthem, as well as the many that have recorded it, including the Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival, whose 1968 version reached the Top 20.The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame chose it as one of the 500 songs that “shaped rock and roll.”

Mr. Hawkins has said that he and Mr. Burton came up with “Susie Q” as they improvised around Mr. Burton’s guitar flourish. “I wrote it, but never actually wrote it — it just kind of worked itself out,” he said in an interview with Kicks, a music newsletter.

When the song was first published, according to Colin Escott’s book “Tattooed on Their Tongues: A Journey Through the Backrooms of American Music” (Schirmer, 1996), it was credited to Mr. Hawkins; Eleanor Broadwater, the wife of a disc jockey; and Stanley J. Lewis, the owner of a local record shop and later a record producer and distributor.

In a 2000 interview with the weekly newspaper Denver Westword, Mr. Hawkins said the names of Ms. Broadwater and Mr. Lewis had been added unknown to him and for reasons he never understood. But that addition, he said, meant that he got only a third of the songwriting royalties. Indeed, he claimed that until MCA bought the Chess Records catalog in 1985, he received nothing for “Susie Q.”

The song’s title seems to have come from a dance craze of the mid-1930s. A song called “Doin’ the Susi-Q” was included in the Cotton Club Revue of 1936. According to Mr. Escott, some sources say that Mr. Hawkins claimed to have seen Howlin’ Wolf, the blues singer, down on his knees screaming “Suzie something or other.”

Delmar Allen Hawkins was born on Aug. 22, 1936, on his grandfather’s cotton farm in Gold Mine, La., where he grew up. His father and other family members were musicians who toured Arkansas and Oklahoma in the 1930s and ’40s. His cousin Ronnie Hawkins was also a rockabilly recording artist. At 16, Dale lied about his age to join the Navy and served in the Korean War. He formed a band shortly after that.

Mr. Hawkins recorded “Susie Q” for Checker, a subsidiary of the celebrated Chicago blues and R&B label Chess Records. He was one of the first white artists the company signed. He was also one of the first white artists to appear at the Apollo in New York and the Regal in Chicago.

In the mid-1960s Mr. Hawkins became a record producer, working with the Uniques, Bruce Channel and the Five Americans, whose “Western Union” made the Top 10 in 1967. In 1969 he returned to singing with the album “L.A., Memphis & Tyler, Texas.” In the 1980s, after recovering from an addiction to prescription drugs, he opened a crisis center for teenagers in Little Rock.

Mr. Hawkins is survived by his companion, Flo Murdock; his sons, Jeffrey and Jay Paul; his brother, Jerry; his sister, Linda Snider; and three grandchildren.

February 18, 2010 - Dale Hawkins, Dies at 73; Rockabilly Author of ‘Susie Q’
By DOUGLAS MARTIN