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1945 – 2021
The tie, exactly: Roger Gail Hawkins was born October 16, 1945, in Mishawaka — the date per his New York Times obituary, the Encyclopedia of Alabama and AllMusic; one drum-magazine biography gives October 15 and one birthday compilation October 22, noted at that weight. He was raised in Greenhill, Alabama. The tie is birth only, and this is a birth-tie entry.
The course: Hawkins took up the drums at about thirteen and became the house drummer at Rick Hall's FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. In April 1969 he co-founded Muscle Shoals Sound Studio at 3614 Jackson Highway, Sheffield, Alabama, with Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett and David Hood. As the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section — the Swampers — the four played on hundreds of sessions, and Hawkins's drumming is the pulse under Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally" and "Land of 1,000 Dances," Aretha Franklin's "Respect," "Think" and "Chain of Fools," Etta James's "I'd Rather Go Blind," the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There" and Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock & Roll." He entered the Alabama Music Hall of Fame with the Rhythm Section in 1995 and the Musicians Hall of Fame thereafter; Rolling Stone placed him thirty-first on its list of the hundred greatest drummers, per the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area. He died May 20, 2021, at his home in Sheffield, Alabama, aged 75, after COPD and other ailments. Alabama owns his life; Mishawaka owns his first breath, and prints only that.
Sources:
- New York Times and Washington Post obituaries, May 2021 (birth at Mishawaka; the session record; death)
- Encyclopedia of Alabama, "Roger Hawkins" (dates; the FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound course)
- Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area (the Rolling Stone ranking)