Ray Hoff born 20 November 1942

Raymond Terrence Charles Hough (born 29 December 1942), who performed as Ray Hoff, was an Australian rock 'n' roll and R&B singer from the late 1950s to mid-1970s. He led Ray Hoff & the Off Beats from 1959 to 1967, which issued a self-titled album.

Ray Hoff was the sixth child of Margaret and William "Sydney" Hough (born c. 1900). Sydney had died on 3 December 1942, weeks before Hoff was born. Hoff grew up in Sydney's Enfield. In 1958, as a vocalist, he teamed with Leon Isackson on drums and Jimmy Taylor on piano to perform at the Leichhardt Police Citizens Boys Club He formed the first line-up of Ray Hoff & the Off Beats in 1959 with Isackson and Taylor joined by John Ryan on bass guitar and Darby Wilson on guitar. 

The Off Beats had a variable line-up, John Ryan's brother Vince provided saxophone in the early years. In 1964 the group released a single, "Little Queenie", via RCA, which is a cover version of Chuck Berry's 1959 track. It reached the No 3 on the top 40 on the local Sydney pop charts. His final line-up in that city was Taylor with Mike Downes on rhythm guitar and Col Risby on lead guitar; all three left to join Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs in 1965. 

                                  

Hoff relocated to Adelaide and then to Perth.  There he formed a new line-up of the Off Beats with Graham Bartlett on guitar, Robert Blom on saxophone, David Birkbeck on trumpet, Ken McBarron on saxophone, Warwick Findlay on drums, John Gray on bass guitar and Basil V'Delli on keyboards. The group signed with Clarion Records, which issued two singles, "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go" (May 1966) and "Tossin' and Turnin'" (October). The group's debut self-titled studio album also appeared in that year via Clarion and was distributed by Festival Records. 

Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described how, "the group featured one side of live cuts and one side of studio material. Among obligatory covers of 'Got My Mojo Working', 'In the Midnight Hour' and 'Mercy Mercy' was the wild instrumental 'My Good Friend Mary Jane'." The group disbanded in 1967, McFarlane felt "The band's style of rock'n'roll was raw with a strong R&B; base. The band made little headway, despite several years of slogging around the Sydney dance/discotheque circuit." 

Hoff formed a briefly existing blues duo with Andre De Moller (ex-Blue Dogs). Malcolm J Turnbull of the Australian Folklore Unit observed, "both veterans of the rock scene, teamed up to cater for hard-core blues fans, and played to packed Thursday night houses at the Quitapena before trying their luck in the east." By 1971 Hoff had joined the Likefun, "an ambitious rock'n'roll revue band", in Perth. Other members were Morri Pierson on vocals, Shirley Reid on vocals, John Tucak on bass guitar, Alan Wilkes on organ and Stevie Wright on vocals (ex-the Easybeats). 

Hoff became "one of the most active Australian performers in Vietnam during the war", where he met his future wife, Kay Kirby, who was a go-go dancer. He returned to Sydney where he left, "full-time performance and became successful in automotive detailing." He was diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and subsequently had two strokes; Ray Hoff died on 19 March 2010, aged 67.

(Edited from Wikipedia) 

Jerry Fuller born 19 November 1938

Jerry Fuller (November 19, 1938 – July 18, 2024) was an American songwriter, singer, and record producer, best known for writing over 1,100 songs, many of which became major hits, including two number ones. 

Jerrell Lee Fuller was born in Fort Worth, Texas on November 19, 1938, to a musical family. Both of his parents were singers. His father, Clarence Fuller, had sung for fiddler and bandleader Bob Wills back in the days when the Light Crust Doughboys band was baking. Mother Lola Fuller did more of the direct music teaching in the family, setting Jerry Fuller and Bob Fuller in motion as the singing Fuller Brothers. The former quickly decided to go on his own, including penning his own numbers. Other family members eventually showed up on Jerry Fuller's production schedule, including Jimmy Fuller and his band Angus and background singer Claudine Fuller. 

                                   

Jerry Fuller was 21 when he showed up in Los Angeles, having already cut ten sides of his own for a small Texas label, Lin owned by Joe Leonard. Jerry was unable to build a following outside Texas so he moved to Los Angeles, hoping to find a place in the thriving South California music scene. Soon he was signed by Challenge Records, for which he would record a total of 23 singles (1959-1966). 

His rockabilly version of "Tennessee Waltz" made No. 63 on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned him an invitation to appear on American Bandstand. In 1961, he wrote "Travelin' Man" which was originally intended for Sam Cooke. Ricky Nelson recorded it instead and the record sold six million copies worldwide. Fuller wrote 11 of Nelson's recordings, including the US Top 10 hits "A Wonder Like You", "Young World", and "It's Up to You". 

Jerry & The Champs

Fuller toured as a featured singer with The Champs, whose other members included Glen Campbell, Jimmy Seals, and Dash Crofts, before a period in the U.S. Army where he spent two years stationed in New York at Seneca Army Depot, still writing songs and entertaining the troops there. On his return in 1963, Challenge / Four Star moved him to New York City to run its east coast operation. There he discovered a garage band, The Knickerbockers, and produced their 1965 hit "Lies”. In 1965, Fuller married Annette Smerigan, and they had two children; the couple had first been introduced by Glen Campbell. 

In 1967, he moved to Columbia Records as a producer. His first discovery was Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, whom he found in a San Diego bowling alley lounge. He wrote and produced the group's hits "Young Girl"  "Lady Willpower" and "Over You". He also produced Mark Lindsay, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, and O.C. Smith, for whom he produced the hits "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp" and "Little Green Apples". At Columbia, Jerry also produced Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Billy Joe Royal and others. He left Columbia in 1970 to start his own company, Moonchild Productions, Inc. and his own publishing firm, Fullness Music, writing and producing the hit "Show and Tell" for Al Wilson in 1973. 

Returning to his Texas roots, Fuller began to write songs for the country market and continued to thrive both as a songwriter and a producer, most notably with “Love Me” by Collin Raye. Fuller did return to recording as a singer at a few points after his burst of songwriting and producing success, including an album for MCA in 1979, “It’s My Turn Now.” Beginning in the late ’90s, he started recording some of the greatest hits he’d enjoyed as a writer or producer, in his own interpretations, culminating in four volumes of “From the Vault” released in 2016-18. 

Fuller's accomplishments speak for themselves, including 28 gold/platinum records, over 40 Top Ten hits, more than 250 national chart records, and a host of awards and accolades, including 12 BMI achievement awards and 5 BMI "Million-Air Awards." 

Fuller died from lung cancer at his home in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, on July 18, 2024, at the age of 85.

(Edited from Wikipedia, This Is My Story, Variety & Rocky 52)

 

Chris Rainbow born 18 November 1946

Christopher James Harley, known by the stage name Chris Rainbow (18 November 1946 – 22 February 2015), was a Scottish pop-rock singer and musician, and an influential figure in 70s British and Scottish radio. 

Born in Glasgow, Rainbow worked through a variety of occupations including doing promotional work for Dream Police, contributing cartoons to Glasgow underground paper The Word and studying at the Society for Psychic Research. Rainbow had a stutter which wasn't apparent when he sang. His first experience in a band occurred just two years before he went solo, in his hometown of Glasgow in a group known as Hope Street. 

He and his bandmates had been given a contract to record and publish with a London company; but in 1973, Polydor's Nicky Graham heard a demo of a trio of Rainbow's self-penned numbers and he secured his own four-year contract thanks to Norman Jones, a friend of the singer's who submitted the tape. Following this in 1974 he adopted the stage name “Rainbow” to avoid confusion with Steve Harley who was a popular singer with Cockney Rebel at the time. 

In addition to his recording deal with Polydor, Rainbow signed a deal to publish with Warner Bros. U.K. Jones, who changed his name to Van Den Berg, took on the task of managing his friend's career, and Rainbow went on to put out two albums with Polydor, Looking Over My Shoulder and Home of the Brave. Five singles followed: "Living in the World Today," "All Night," "Mr. Man," "Give Me What I Cry For," and "Solid State Brain." When Jones relocated to California in 1977, Rainbow hired David Knights, formerly of Procol Harum. Knights remained Rainbow's manager through 1986. During this time, Rainbow also wrote advertising jingles for BBC Radio 1 and Capitol Radio. 

                                   

In 1978, his contract with Polydor ended and within a week he joined the stable at EMI. The company released his White Trails album and the singles "Body Music" and "Ring Ring." Just after brief foray into disco funk with Max Middleton on a one off single under the worrying banner of "Maximum Penetration”, Chris was one many artists who was dropped by EMI in their turn of the decade clear out. 

Alan Parsons Project

In 1979, Rainbow also began his decade long association with The Alan Parsons Project, recording on many of their albums from Eve through Alan Parsons' 1999 solo album, The Time Machine. He also appeared on other Alan Parsons's associated works, such as Panarama's Can This Be Paradise in 1982 (with Ian Bairnson and German keyboard player Hermann Weindorf), and Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons's Freudiana in 1990. Rainbow toured with Jon Anderson in 1980 and did vocal work on Song of Seven in 1980 and Animation in 1983. 

In the early 1980s, Rainbow joined Camel, appearing on the albums The Single Factor and Stationary Traveller, and performing with them on their 1982 and 1984 tours, recordings of which were released as the album Pressure Points. Rainbow would do vocal work on Heart Of The Universe, a solo album by Ton Scherpenzeel who was the keyboardist of Camel in 1984. 

From 1986 through 1998, Rainbow produced records in Scotland. He also performed session work during this time for such artists as Parsons, Elaine Paige, Culture Club, Eric Woolfson, Lenny Zakatek, and Tomoyasu Hotei. He also spent almost two decades working as producer for Runrig, a group that performed Scottish-Gaelic rock. The River Detectives, another group from Scotland, also worked closely with Rainbow. 

Rainbow built and ran the Vital Spark Music Studio on the Isle of Skye where several artists including Donnie Munro, Blair Douglas, and KT Tunstall recorded albums.  Rainbow started recording again as a solo performer in 2000, with the album In a Perfect World under his real name of Chris Harley, planned to hit store shelves during the summer of 2001. However, the album was never released. Chris Rainbow died on the Isle of Skye 22 February 2015 after battling Parkinson's disease; he was 68 years old. 

(Edited from AllMusic, & Wikipedia)

 

Garnet Mimms born 16 November 1933

Garnet Mimms (born Garrett Mimms, November 16, 1933 is an American singer, influential in soul music and rhythm and blues. His pleading, gospel-derived intensity made him one of the earliest true soul singers and his legacy remains criminally underappreciated. 

Born in Ashland, West Virginia, United States, Mimms grew up in Philadelphia, where he sang in church choirs and in gospel groups such as the Evening Stars and the Harmonizing Four. He first recorded as a member of the Norfolk Four, for Savoy Records in 1953. He returned to Philadelphia after serving in the military and, after a spell in a doo-wop group, the Deltones, formed another group, the Gainors, in 1958, with Sam Bell, Willie Combo, John Jefferson, and Howard Tate. The Gainors recorded several singles over the next few years for the Red Top, Mercury and Talley Ho labels, but failed to have any chart success.Mimms and Bell left the group in 1961, and joined with Charles Boyer and Zola Pearnell to form Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters. 

The Enchanters

The group moved from Philadelphia to New York in 1963, and began to work with the songwriter and record producer Bert Berns, who signed them to the United Artists label and teamed them with fellow songwriter and producer Jerry Ragovoy. Dominic Turner wrote that "the partnership between the Enchanters on the one hand and Ragovoy and Berns on the other was very much an experiment in applying Mimms' gospel and deep soul roots to the new uptown soul in vogue in New York." The new team had an immediate hit with "Cry Baby", written by Berns and Ragovoy, and with uncredited vocal backing by the Gospelaires, featuring Dionne Warwick, Dee Dee Warwick, and Estelle Brown. The song topped the R&B chart and reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963. It sold over one million copies and was certified gold. 

                                     

The group followed it up with "For Your Precious Love," a cover of Jerry Butler and the Impressions' original, which hit the Billboard Top 30 later that year, as did the flip side, "Baby Don't You Weep." Another hit recording with the Enchanters, "A Quiet Place", became a popular song among the Carolina beach music community. "A Quiet Place" was also adapted with enduring appeal by many Reggae artists, including John Holt,The Paragons, Horace Andy, Doctor Alimantado and Dennis Brown. The reggae versions were released under a number of different titles, the most well-known being "Man Next Door". 

In 1964, Mimms left the Enchanters for a solo career; with Sam Bell as lead vocalist, the group went on to have a minor hit with "I Wanna Thank You". Mimms continued to record for United Artists, and had several minor R&B hits over the next two years, including "One Girl" and a cover of the Jarmels' "A Little Bit of Soap." Mimms also released three albums on United Artists, As Long As I Have You (1964), I'll Take Good Care Of You, and Warm and Soulful (both 1966). 

He moved to the UA subsidiary label Veep in 1966, releasing several singles including "My Baby", later recorded by Janis Joplin; the song also made the live setlist of the last edition of the Yardbirds/early Led Zeppelin, and the following year he toured in the UK with Jimi Hendrix. An album, Garnet Mimms Live, was recorded with Scottish band 'The Senate' (who featured drummer Robbie McIntosh, later of the Average White Band), and was released in the UK in 1967. He continued to work with Ragovoy, and in 1968 started recording for Verve Records. In 1968–69, Led Zeppelin performed an extended version of Mimms' "As Long As I Have You" as an early improv showcase piece on their UK and US tours (they used Mimms' song until they recorded "Whole Lotta Love", and then this new song became their improv showcase piece). Mimms' final recordings for several years were issued on the GSF label in 1972. 

In the late 1970s, he released a few funk songs under the name Garnet Mimms and the Truckin' Company. He had his only hit in the UK at this time, when "What It Is", produced by Randy Muller of Brass Construction, reached number 44 for one week on the UK Singles Chart in June 1977. Mimms later told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “after my father passed in `78, I just lost the zeal for that kind of music. Disco came in, with the lights and the loud music. I was always a balladeer. I didn’t like all that loud stuff.” 

Mimms gave up his music career shortly afterwards. He became a born-again Christian, and in the 1980s found his calling ministering to lost souls as part of the New Jerusalem Prison Ministry. He later established the Bottom Line Revival Ministries, again ministering to prisoners. In 2007 he returned to recording, and a year later released a new album Is Anybody Out There? on the Evidence label, produced and written by Jon Tiven.

Mimms was given a Pioneer Award in 1999 by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

(Edited from Wikepedia)

 

Clyde McPhatter born 15 November 1932

Clyde Lensley McPhatter (November 15, 1932 – June 13, 1972) was an American rhythm-and-blues singer popular in the 1950s whose emotional style anticipated soul music. He was one of the most widely imitated R&B singers of the 1950s and early 1960s and was a key figure in the shaping of doo-wop and R&B. 

One of the most dramatic vocalists of his generation, McPhatter grew up in a devout Christian family that moved from North Carolina to New Jersey in the mid-1940s. There, together with some high school friends (including two of author James Baldwin’s brothers), he formed the Mount Lebanon Singers, who quickly found success on the gospel circuit. In 1950 a talent contest brought him to the attention of vocal coach Billy Ward, whose group he joined. He was present for the recording of "Sixty Minute Man" for Federal Records, produced by Ralph Bass. 

Billy Ward and his Dominoes was one of the top R&B vocal groups in the country, garnering more popularity than the Clovers, the Ravens, and the Five Keys, largely due to McPhatter's fervent, high-pitched tenor. In his book The Drifters, Bill Millar named Ben E. King, Smokey Robinson of the Miracles, Sammy Turner, and Marv Johnson among the many vocalists who patterned themselves after McPhatter. After recording several more songs with the Dominoes, including "Have Mercy Baby", "Do Something for Me", and "The Bells", McPhatter left the Dominoes on May 7, 1953. 

                                   

He was sometimes passed off as "Clyde Ward, Billy's little brother". Others assumed Billy Ward was doing the lead singing. As a member of the Dominoes, McPhatter did not earn much money; Ward paid him $100 a week, minus deductions for food, taxes, motel bills, etc.  Due to such occurrences, and as he was frequently at odds with Ward, McPhatter decided he would quit the Dominoes, intent on making a name for himself in 1953. 

Shortly thereafter, Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun sought to establish a new group around McPhatter, eventually recruiting former members of the Thrasher Wonders. They recorded a few tracks in June 1953, including a song called "Lucille", written by McPhatter himself. This group of Drifters did not have the sound Atlantic executives were looking for, however, and Clyde was prompted to assemble another group of singers. The initial members of the Drifters McPhatter assembled were mostly members of the Mount Lebanon Singers. 

Ruth Brown, Clyde McPatter, LaVern Baker

As Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, this group soon had a hit with “Money Honey,” which perfectly showcased McPhatter’s melismatic, gospel-derived style. In 1954 their recording of Irving Berlin’s classic “White Christmas” was banned from the radio because of alleged lewdness, yet it became a perennial seller. That fall McPhatter was drafted into the army but, stationed in New Jersey, was able to continue recording and appear in the film Mister Rock and Roll (1957). 

After his tour of duty, he left the Drifters and launched a solo career. The Drifters continued as a successful group, but with many changes in personnel. McPhatter began to record increasingly pop-oriented material, including the pop Top 20 hits “Without Love (There Is Nothing)” (1956) and “A Lover’s Question” (1958) as well as the rhythm-and-blues hit “Lovey Dovey.” In 1960 he switched record labels, signing first with MGM, then with Mercury. His new material was so pop-oriented that his 1962 hit “Lover Please” did not even show up on the rhythm-and-blues charts. McPhatter's career took a downward turn, as musical styles and tastes were constantly changing during the 1960s. He managed a top 30 R&B hit, "Crying Won't Help You Now", in 1964, then fell off the charts. McPhatter turned to alcohol abuse, sporadically releasing recordings that failed to chart. 

In 1968, McPhatter found work in British clubs for a few years, until the same personal problems caught up with him. He returned to America in the early '70s, signing with Decca Records at the time and releasing an album, Welcome Home. It failed to make any impact, and McPhatter himself denied having any audience or fans left, which was not the case. It was too late for McPhatter, professionally and personally, however. 

Years of alcoholism and depression, and a failure to deal with his problems ended when he died in his sleep at the age of 39, of complications of heart, liver, and kidney disease on June 13, 1972. McPhatter was a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, at the time of his death. He was buried at George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey. 

It took years for Atlantic, where he'd been signed for what were probably the six most optimistic years of his career, to begin to make his music available in the United States. McPhatter was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

(Edited from Britannica, Wikipedia & AllMusic) 

 

Freddie Garrity born 14 November 1936

Frederick Garrity (14 November 1936 – 19 May 2006) was an English singer and actor. He was best known as the front man of Freddie and the Dreamers from 1959 until his retirement in 2001. Freddie & the Dreamers were the clowns of the British Invasion, playing their pop music for laughs while the other groups of the time were dead serious. 

Born in Sale, Manchester, the son of a miner, Garrity was educated locally. A talented schoolboy footballer, he was also steeped in his city's popular entertainment tradition. After leaving school in 1956, he signed on for an engineering apprenticeship that would have lasted seven years had his musical talent not begun to emerge. He started to practice his guitar skills on the shopfloor of the Turbine factory, and show them off at staff dances. 

A fanatical Manchester United fan, he began to get pub gigs. Then, during the first year of his apprenticeship, he won a local talent contest with an Al Jolson impression. During the skiffle era, he and his brother Derek formed a band called the Red Sox, which, in 1958, were runners-up in a north-west skiffle competition. Subsequent bookings in Greater Manchester kept them busy, but Garrity's fiancee prevailed upon him to leave the group to sing with the less demanding John Norman Four. Within weeks, he had joined the Kingfishers, who by 1961 had mutated into Freddie and the Dreamers. 

The comic capers that became their trademark were developed during a club residency in Hamburg. Though Freddie was the front man, the Dreamers did not just skulk behind him, but engaged too in trouser-dropping, slapstick and other clowning. For aspiring pop stars, they were an odd bunch; a podgy bass player, a drummer who resembled a door-to-door salesman, one guitarist sporting curious sunglasses and the other prematurely bald. 

                                    

In the early years of the band, Garrity's official birth-date was given as 14 November 1940 to make him appear younger and, therefore, more appealing to the youth market who bought the majority of records sold in the UK. Garrity's trademark was his comic dancing and his habit of leaping up and down during performances. This, combined with his almost skeletal appearance and horn-rimmed glasses, made him an eccentric figure in the UK rock scene of the early 1960s. 

The band consisted of Freddie as vocalist, guitarist Roy Crewdson, guitarist/harmonica player Derek Quinn, bassist Peter Birrell, and drummer Bernie Dwyer. Although the band was grouped as part of the Merseybeat sound phenomenon centred around Liverpool, they came from Manchester. They had four Top 10 UK hits: "If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody", "I'm Telling You Now" , "You Were Made for Me" and "I Understand". Their eponymous debut album was released in the United Kingdom in 1963, peaking at number five in the UK Albums Chart and reaching number 19 in the US albums chart on 22 May 1965. It was the only LP by the group to chart in America; their subsequent four albums in the UK failed to chart. 

On stage, the group performed rehearsed, synchronised wacky dance routines. They appeared in four British films: What a Crazy World with Joe Brown, Just for You, Cuckoo Patrol with Kenneth Connor and Victor Maddern and Every Day's A Holiday (US title Seaside Swingers) with Mike Sarne, Ron Moody and John Leyton. Freddie and the Dreamers began to lose commercial ground in 1966, and disbanded in the late 1960s. 

Between 1968 and 1973, Garrity and his former bandmate Pete Birrell appeared in the ITV children's television show Little Big Time. Garrity made a solo appearance on the first episode of the Granada Television production The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club singing "Try a Little Kindness" and "Good Morning Starshine", broadcast on 13 April 1974. 

After his television career ended, Garrity formed a new version of Freddie and the Dreamers and toured regularly for the next two decades, but no further records or chart success came their way. He continued to perform until 2001, when he was diagnosed with emphysema after having a heart attack during a flight from America to Britain that forced him to retire.With his health in decline, Garrity settled in a bungalow called "Dreamers End" in Moreton Avenue, in Newcastle-under-Lyme. He was married three times and had one daughter from his first marriage, and three children from his second marriage. 

Subsequently often confined to a wheelchair, he died on May 19th 2006, at Bangor in North Wales, at the age of 69, after falling ill on holiday. Garrity was cremated at the Carmountside Crematorium in Abbey Hulton, Stoke-on-Trent, his family collected the Ashes and held a private funeral.

(Edited from Wikipedia & Alan Clayson obit @ The Guardian)

 

Hampton Hawes born 13 November 1928

Hampton Barnett Hawes Jr. (November 13, 1928 – May 22, 1977) was an American jazz pianist. He was the author of the memoir Raise Up Off Me, which won the Deems-Taylor Award for music writing in 1975. 

Hampton Hawes was born in Los Angeles, California. His father, Hampton Hawes Sr., was minister of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. His mother, the former Gertrude Holman, was Westminster's church pianist. Hawes taught himself as a boy and by his teens he was playing with the leading jazz musicians on the West Coast, including Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, and Teddy Edwards. His second professional job, at 18, was playing for eight months with the Howard McGhee Quintet at the Hi De Ho Club, in a group that included Charlie Parker. 

 By late 1947, Hawes' reputation had led to studio-recording work. Artists from these early session dates included George L. "Happy" Johnson, Teddy Edwards, Sonny Criss, and Shorty Rogers. From 1948 to 1952, he was recorded live on several occasions at Los Angeles-area jazz clubs including The Haig, The Lighthouse, and The Surf Club. By December 1952, he had recorded eight songs under his own name for Prestige Records with a quartet featuring Larry Bunker on vibraphone. 

                                    

Hawes' playing style developed in the early 1950s. He included "figures used by Parker and Bud Powell (but he played with a cleaner articulation than Powell), some Oscar Peterson phrases, and later, some Bill Evans phrases and an impressive locked-hands style in which the top notes always sang out clearly." He also helped develop "the double-note blues figures and rhythmically compelling comping style that Horace Silver and others were to use in the mid-1950s." His technique featured "great facility with rapid runs and a versatile control of touch." 

Hawes was influenced by some jazz pianists, including Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. Hawes' own influences came from a number of sources, including the gospel music and spirituals he heard in his father's church as a child, and the boogie-woogie piano of Earl Hines. Hawes also learned much from pianists Powell and Nat King Cole, among others. However, his principal source of influence was his friend Charlie Parker. 

After serving in the U.S. Army in Japan from 1952 to 1954, Hawes formed his own trio, with bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Chuck Thompson. The three-record Trio sessions made by this group in 1955 on Contemporary Records were considered some of the finest records to come out of the West Coast at the time. The next year, Hawes added guitarist Jim Hall for the All Night Session! album. These were three records made during a non-stop overnight recording session. After a six-month national tour in 1956, Hawes won the "New Star of the Year" award in Down Beat magazine, and "Arrival of the Year" in Metronome. The following year, he recorded in New York City with Charles Mingus on the album Mingus Three (Jubilee, 1957). 

Struggling for many years with a heroin addiction, in 1958 Hawes became the target of a federal undercover operation in Los Angeles. Investigators believed that he would inform on suppliers rather than risk ruining a successful music career. Hawes was arrested on heroin charges on his 30th birthday and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. In the intervening weeks between his trial and sentencing, Hawes recorded an album of spirituals and gospel songs, The Sermon. 

In 1961, while at a federal prison hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, Hawes was watching President Kennedy's inaugural speech on television, and became convinced that Kennedy would pardon him. With help from inside and outside the prison, Hawes submitted an official request for a presidential pardon. In August 1963, Kennedy granted Hawes Executive Clemency, the 42nd of only 43 such pardons given in the final year of Kennedy's presidency. After being released from prison, Hawes resumed playing and recording. After coming back to jazz world, Hawes had to fight against his own depression. 

Raise Up Off Me, Hawes' autobiography, written with Don Asher and published in 1974, shed light on his heroin addiction, the bebop movement, and his friendships with some of the leading jazz musicians of his time. It won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for music writing in 1975. 

He led trios for the remainder of his life, using electric piano (which disturbed his longtime fans) for a period in the early to mid-'70s, but returned to acoustic piano before dying unexpectedly of a brain hemorrhage on May 22, 1977 at the age of 48. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)