Artist Profile

Ron Hawkins

After a 15 year recording career Ron Hawkins finally gets a record out in Australia - and is set to tour as a very special guest on the Weddings, Parties, Anything reunion jaunt. We're talking about The Other Ron Hawkins here - not the tireless blues stalwart and cohort of The Band from Arkansas - but the articulate, powerful contemporary songwriter hailing from downtown Toronto. ?

With Ron's solo album Chemical Sounds out this year on his own Victimless Capitalism label in Canada and the Weddings taking to the road again in Australia, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Croxton Records to introduce another great Canadian artist to Australian audiences hungry for a musically and politically articulate voice.

And what a voice it is! Powerful and exuberant, aggressive and heartfelt, the songs are philosophical, biting and soulful but most of all they are real. And it's the realism of these songs that hits you like a freight train.

Ron has spent much of his career fronting The Lowest of the Low - a fine passionate, lyrical rock band that released two fantastic albums in the 90¹s, broke up, reformed, released another couple of records, broke up again and were finally inducted into the Canadian Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. More than anything they were known for the strength of their songs and the outspoken larrikin verve of their frontman. They toured relentlessly across their native Canada, making occasional forays to their pockets of support in the United States. They were a hell of a band and Ron is a hell of a songwriter.

Around about 1992, after six years of slogging back and forth across the Trans-Canada Highway, Weddings, Parties, Anything came through Toronto on their final tour of Canada. They played a couple of nights with The Lowest of the Low at Lee's Palace in Toronto, striking up a camaraderie and mutual respect that has lasted to this day.

The Australian release of Chemical Sounds has an extra track (War Without End) plus a whole load of video introductions which should be essential viewing to those coming to this fantastic singer-songwriter for the first time as well as for long-time fans.

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