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Chapter 9. Meet Me Down In Nashville: May Hawks
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143 Chapter 9 Meet Me Down in Nashville May Hawks I auditioned at WSM, . . . I’m singin’“The Waltz Of The Wind” and before I got through even one stanza, they said,“We’ll take ya!” . . . Everything that’s ever happened to me has been like an accident, just unplanned. —May Hawks1 While most female country singers in Detroit’s nightclubs and radio of the 1940s and 1950s struggled against the male- dominated current of the industry , May Hawks fell into the drink and let it carry her upstream. Lucky to be widely appreciated for her singing and gracious personality, Hawks attracted people who helped her avoid the burden of promoting herself. For several years during the 1950s, she held one of the highest profiles among women in country music in Southeast Michigan. Her career blossomed almost effortlessly, taking her to the WSM Grand Ole Opry and back to the Motor City, where Hawks recorded records and performed on clear channel WJR radio. Lily May Gibson was born June 16, 1921, her parents’ sixth child, on a farm five miles west of Cookeville,Tennessee.Her mother Della played the organ, father Lee played harmonica,and sister Leona played ukulele.While Hawks attended grade school, one of her brothers moved to work in Detroit. A few months later, he returned for a visit with a gift: a new guitar for the household .“We had a musical family,” she said.“Sunday was our big day. . . . Our 144 / Detroit Country Music friends always gathered at our house because my mother and dad were so gentle, and so kind, and so good to people. . . . And they taught us to play and to sing.” Hawks’ first public performance occurred when she was about twelve years old, in a schoolhouse in nearby Algood, where she, Leona, and a friend made five dollars each. During the early 1940s, she performed her own program at WHUB Cookeville. Saginaw Songbird Leona married and moved to Troy, Michigan, a rural community north of Detroit. When she and her husband returned to Tennessee for a vacation, they brought a friend named Robert Hawks with them.“He was a good man. A nice looking man. Had a little mustache,” said May Hawks.“He started writing me. Just wouldn’t take‘no’ for an answer. . . . He was a little bit older than me, but he was a wonderful man. He didn’t drink and he didn’t swear.” They married and she moved to Michigan,where Robert Hawks worked the afternoon shift for Chrysler’s Plymouth division.“He had a lot of seniority there, and never was late but one or two times in his life. He worked forty- three years there,” said May Hawks. In spring 1947 WKNX Saginaw opened. The station carried live performances by bands led by Casey Clark, Jimmy Dickens, and Tex Ferguson. During an era when stations didn’t fill every available frequency on the AM band, the Hawks could dial in WKNX broadcasts from their home in Troy. Robert Hawks knew friends who farmed in Marlette, and he enjoyed hunting on their land. One Saturday, the Hawks went to Marlette with another couple, and someone suggested they attend the weekly country music show that Clark and Dickens hosted at a skating rink in Bad Axe. They said,“Let’s go hear that. Maybe you could sing on it!” I said,“Ooooh!” I really didn’t want to sing. . . . I didn’t think I did. So we got there, and here was Casey Clark and“Little” Jimmy Dickens. . . . They said,“Well, come on and sing [44.210.236.0] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:36 GMT) Meet Me Down in Nashville: May Hawks / 145 us a song.” And I did. . . . The next week, WKNX radio station sent me a letter and asked me if I’d like to have my own program. . . . That was a big thrill. I drove all the way from my house to Saginaw— tried it two or three times, just driving back and forth. It was such a joy to be on the radio. . . . “Uncle Don” Andrews was mostly my announcer.2 For the next several months, Hawks hosted a radio show, and appeared as a guest with the WKNX bands. Bob Cooley (guitar) and his brother Dick (bass), members of Ferguson’s band, traveled with Hawks to personal appearances around the region. She rented a room in Saginaw during the week and spent weekends with her husband in Troy.“I stayed [at...