hypersongs

Alan Hawkshaw

A Leeds-born keyboardist and composer who played on thousands of sessions, wrote library music for KPM including the Grange Hall and Channel 4 News themes, and played the organ on The Mohawks' "The Champ", one of the most sampled records in hip hop.

Leeds to London sessions

William Alan Hawkshaw was born in Leeds in 1937 (April 27 on Wikipedia, March 27 in one obituary) and worked as a printer before turning professional. He was conscripted into the RAF, serving in the UK and Cyprus, and played piano for semi-professional dance bands. In 1960 he joined Emile Ford and the Checkmates, playing on their hit "Counting Teardrops" and meeting the Beatles in Hamburg while the band played the Top Ten Club. He settled in London as a session pianist and Hammond organist, played a long organ and piano solo on David Bowie's "In the Heat of the Morning" for a BBC session on May 13, 1968, and was recruited by Hank Marvin for the Shadows' 1969 tour of Japan, staying until 1970.

In 1968 he assembled the session group the Mohawks, with Les Hurdle on bass and Byron Davis on drums, and in 1969 recorded the KPM library record The Big Beat with them. He was musical director and arranger for Olivia Newton-John from 1974, including "I Honestly Love You", a US number one for which, he says, he was paid 30 pounds, and he played keyboards on Donna Summer's Once Upon a Time (1977).

Themes, disco and the breaks

For the KPM library he wrote "Chicken Man", used as the Grange Hill theme from 1978 to 1989, "Best Endeavours", the Channel 4 News theme from 1982, the Countdown clock music and the music for The New Statesman (1987-94). "Here Comes That Sound Again" (1979, Love De-Luxe with Hawkshaw's Discophonia) reached number one on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart, and "New Earth Parts 1 and 2" (1977) was sampled by Jay-Z in "Pray". He founded the Alan Hawkshaw Foundation to fund scholarships for music students (1983 in one account, 2003 in another), received a Gold Badge Award in 2008 and the British Empire Medal in the 2021 Birthday Honours, published an autobiography, The Champ (The Hawk Talks), in 2011, and made Full Circle with Brian Bennett (KPM) in 2018.

He died on October 16, 2021, aged 84. About 7,000 sessions with Newton-John, Serge Gainsbourg, Tom Jones, Barbra Streisand and Bowie are credited to him by one obituary summary, and he said he would have hated being a celebrity and liked being in the background.

Songs

  • The Champ 1968

    The Mohawks' 1968 funk single on Pama, with Hawkshaw on Hammond organ, sampled on more than 600 records.

Sources

  1. Alan Hawkshaw, Wikipedia
  2. Alan Hawkshaw obituary, Yahoo UK
  3. Breaks with Tradition: The Champ, Stereogum
  4. The Champ, Ethan Hein