Watch Your Step (Ted Hawkins album)

Last updated
Watch Your Step
Watch Your Step - Ted Hawkins.jpg
Compilation album by
Released1982
Recorded1971–72
Studio Eldorado Recording Studios, Los Angeles
Label Rounder [1]
Producer Bruce Bromberg [1]
Dennis Walker
Ted Hawkins chronology
Watch Your Step
(1982)
Happy Hour
(1986)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [2]
Robert Christgau A− [3]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [4]
The Line of Best Fit 7/10 [5]
The New Rolling Stone Record Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [6]
Tom Hull – on the Web B+ ( Five Pointed Star Solid.svg Five Pointed Star Solid.svg Five Pointed Star Solid.svg ) [7]

Watch Your Step is a 1982 album by Ted Hawkins, a collection of previously recorded songs. [2] [8]

Contents

Release

At the time of the album's release, Hawkins was a guest of the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. [9]

Critical reception

The Boston Phoenix called Watch Your Step "a triumph ... much more than the best blues album of the year -- it's an unexpected hybrid, the first folk-soul masterpiece." [10] Trouser Press wrote: "Teaching a mighty acoustic lesson in roots music, Hawkins inhabits that secular place just outside the churchyard where gospel, folk and soul meet." [11] Robert Christgau wrote that "these little dramas of passion, tenderness and betrayal are stamped with the sin-and-redemption of a lived life." [3] The New Rolling Stone Record Guide wrote that "soul and blues fans need to hear this, if only to restore their faith in the dying art of emotional conviction." [6]

Track listing

All songs were written by Theodore Hawkins, Jr. (i.e. Ted Hawkins); who also sang and played guitar on all of them. [12]

  1. "Watch Your Step" – Acoustic version
  2. "Bring It Home Daddy"
  3. "If You Love Me"
  4. "Don't Lose Your Cool"
  5. "The Lost Ones"
  6. "Who Got My Natural Comb?"
  7. "Peace & Happiness"
  8. "Sweet Baby"
  9. "Stop Your Crying"
  10. "Put In a Cross"
  11. "Sorry You're Sick"
  12. "Watch Your Step" – Full band version
  13. "TWA"
  14. "I Gave Up All I Had"
  15. "Stay Close to Me"

Personnel

According to an early vinyl release: [12]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Ted Hawkins | Biography & History". AllMusic.
  2. 1 2 Wynn, Ron. Ted Hawkins: Watch Your Step at AllMusic . Retrieved June 15, 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Robert Christgau: CG: Ted Hawkins". www.robertchristgau.com.
  4. Larkin, Colin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 4. MUZE. p. 185.
  5. "This Ted Hawkins reissue is a deep dive into a tortured character". The Line of Best Fit.
  6. 1 2 The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. Random House. 1983. p. 220.
  7. Hull, Tom (May 10, 2021). "Music Week". Tom Hull – on the Web. Retrieved May 13, 2021.
  8. "TED HAWKINS is a singer, a songwriter, and a guitarist who for almost 30 years was a street mu..." NPR.org.
  9. Dineen, Donal. "Sunken Treasure: Ted Hawkins' Watch Your Step". The Irish Times.
  10. Miles, Milo (3 August 1982). "Blues with a feeling: Ted Hawkins's acoustic soul". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved 11 September 2024.
  11. "Ted Hawkins". Trouser Press. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  12. 1 2 Liner notes to WOLP 1