Chuck Hawthorne_January 2016
“He bent minors out of majors with a ball-peen revelator. Lord, how he could make that hammer sing!”
An Amarillo, Texas native, Chuck Hawthorne has been writing and performing for over 20 years amassing a catalog of unique, well-crafted and starkly honest songs. They’re sometimes deadly serious; sometimes raucous, and always passionately written and delivered. As fellow musician Shawn T. Pabst once remarked, “…A man with the courage of a warrior, the heart of a poet, and a soul as old as time.”
“Halos roll down the creases of your cowboy hat. Souvenirs hang from mirrors that don’t look back…”
Growing up around cowboys and ranchers of the Texas Panhandle, his music is heavily influenced by the culture of the west. Drawing from the same well as his Panhandle music forbearers Terry Allen, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore et al, his compositions strike universal heartstrings from a singularly vast and barren landscape. His sister taught him to sing and play a 1950’s-era Magnus organ as a child and his passion for music began to be fueled by the popular country and folk artists of the era.
“Sometimes you live for what you’re doing. Sometimes you do just what you can….Living your life like a rodeo man.”
Joining the Marines immediately after high school, Chuck set about on a series of adventures that took him all over the world. His music went with him. Learning to play guitar on a Navy ship in the Mediterranean Sea, he soon found himself entertaining bands of sailors, Marines, and locals at home and abroad.
Chuck attended the University of Texas and it was there that his songwriting began in earnest. Discovering a wealth of music best personified by Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark and finding mentorship in his fellow musicians, he honed his stagecraft and songwriting skills around campfires, living rooms, recording studios, and in many of the live music venues of Austin. Then he left…
“Breathing in his world was huffing gasoline and searching for the wind to gently curse.”
That was over a decade ago. Now, in the tradition of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Chuck has wandered back to Austin to tell us where he’s been. His debut album promises to do just that…and be an instant Texas Music classic. Catch him if you can.
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CHUCK HAWTHORNE was sitting in a Chicago airport next to his guitar case. He had been visiting friends for the weekend and was waiting on a flight back to Austin, where he had recently relocated following his retirement from the US Marine Corps. Another gentleman toting a guitar took the seat next to him and struck up a conversation. That man was Juno Award winning artist Ray Bonneville.
As the flight boarded, the two exchanged contact information, and Ray asked Chuck to send him some songs. Chuck had heard that line before and figured that airport conversation would be the last he heard from Ray Bonneville. But the next day, he emailed Ray a few songs anyway. Ray sent a reply that would change Chuck’s life and career. It read, “Let’s meet for coffee and discuss your record.”
The road that led Chuck to that chance airport encounter started on a cattle ranch in Amarillo and spanned the globe over 21 years of military service. Chuck developed his voice as a songwriter riding the Texas plains with his cowboy heroes Clifton Lowe and Alvin Hamrick, sailing the Adriatic sea and picking guitar aboard the USS Iwo Jima, writing Post 2 Gate in the basement of a Baghdad palace, and while experiencing the stories of the people he came to know in his hometown, his numerous deployments, and points in between.
The 11 songs on Chuck’s debut album, Silver Line, were produced by
Ray Bonneville at Shine Studios in Austin, Texas, and feature a roster of stellar guest musicians including Eliza Gilkyson and Gurf Morlix.
The record recently caught the attention of Michael Martin Murphy, who heard Chuck play at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. Murph has since invited Chuck to play shows with him at the Saxon Pub in Austin and the Franklin Theatre in Nashville, and along with Bonneville, he has become a musical mentor to Chuck.
★ Chuck Hawthorne is currently touring the country in support of Silver Line, which promises to put him firmly on the Americana map alongside the great songsmiths that now admire his work.
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Chuck Hawthorne ReverbNation
Being a January spotlight, there’s some end of year list honors that haven’t made his website to date:
* The Telegraph (UK) – Best Country and Americana Music Albums of 2015
* John Godfrey’s The Troubadour Show – #1 of his Top 20 Albums of 2015
* David Tonberg’s Americana Roots and Snakeskin Boots- Best of 2015
* Nominated for the Freeform American Roots Debut Album of the Year.
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