'Blonde Bomber' was rockabilly's elder statesman
Dawson's Texas-fueled career in roots rock spanned six decades
No performer ever seized a second coming, a new start, so completely.
Ronnie Dawson, who had recorded such rockabilly classics as "Action Packed" and "Rockin' Bones" in Dallas in the late '50s, was tracked down in 1987 by a British record collector who wanted to include an ancient Dawson track on a compilation.
"What I really want to do," Dawson told Barney Koumis, "is play over there."
Dawson, who died of cancer Monday in Dallas at age 64, was hailed as a hero at his first concert overseas. But unlike many other vintage rock 'n' rollers, who play perfunctory sets on the way to the merchandise/autograph booth, Dawson was electrifying, spraying the air with machine gun guitar licks, leaping from drum risers, infusing his old songs with new purpose. The skinny kid tagged "the Blonde Bomber" in his Big D Jamboree days might have been pushing 50, but he was pushing it, man.
He also tore it up at his last concert, at Fiesta Gardens on March 29 of this year. Stricken with inoperable cancer, which had spread from his tongue to his lungs and throughout his body, Dawson took the stage a frail skeleton.
Fans in the audience, as well as Dawson's Austin-based backing band High Noon, had tears in their eyes. Everybody knew the elder statesman of Texas rockabilly didn't have much time left. But when he plugged in his guitar and started ripping into the lead of "Red Hot Mama," he made everybody forget just how sick he was.
"It was the most incredible display of courage I've ever seen," said Steve Wertheimer, whose Continental Club helped organized Dawson's finale.
"I love you all!," Dawson said on that cold March afternoon at Fiesta Gardens, his last words onstage. "And we're the richer for it!" a female fan called back.
Through constant touring in the '90s, Dawson became the gold standard for live roots rock performers, an act that could stir it up on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" one night and shake the beams of a rock dive the next.
"Ronnie never put on an oldies show," said his drummer of ten years Lisa Pankratz. "He wanted it to be valid in the here and now."
Dawson made influential records -- helping to establish London's Toerag studio, where hipsters such as the White Stripes now record -- as a raw and gritty sound factory with 1994's "Monkey Beat."
The thing that long has distinguished Texas music to the world is the way the blues seem to creep into everything, from Ray Price's honky-tonk crooning to Buddy Holly's melodic rock. The blues were inside Dawson's sound since his days as a Waxahachie high schooler.
After his rockabilly career stalled in the early '60s, Dawson easily morphed into R&B alter ego Commonwealth Jones and was signed to Columbia, which marketed his first single to black audiences. When "Do Do Do" failed to sell or get much radio play, Jones was dropped.
Dawson's next project was the Levee Singers, a Dallas-based folk group from 1961-68, which made it to the "Hootenanny" TV show. Dawson also did session work, playing drums on Bruce Channel's 1962 hit "Hey! Baby," among other credits.
Singing on commercials for Hungry Jack pancakes, among other products, paid the bills, but Dawson knew he had "Still A Lot of Rhythm," as his 1988 comeback album was called.
Dawson told the Austin American-Statesman in 1995 that clean living (he ran 10 miles every other day) and a satisfied mind deserved the credit for his energy level onstage and in the studio. "I think a lot of the old guys got ripped off so bad that it made them bitter," he said. "I never really had much money to rip off."
Diagnosed with cancer of the tonsils in November 2001, and completing chemotherapy sessions, Dawson and his wife, Chris, thought the disease was in check. But it returned in late 2002, spreading to his tongue and his lungs.
Through an e-mail in January, Chris Dawson informed friends that Ronnie had just about six months to live. He actually lasted nine more months.
"He held on long and strong," Pankratz said. "Even as the rest of his body was ravaged with disease, his heart wouldn't give up."
A wake is at 3 p.m. Sunday at Sons Of Hermann Hall |
