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Ron Hacker
"The first time I got the blues, I mean really got
the blues, was in 1956. A friend and I got caught breaking into parking
meters. I was eleven - he was twelve. Off we went to the juvenile
center.
The counselors in the center were young
Afro-Americans in their twenties and they loved their music, like young
dudes do. In '56 their music was Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy
Waters, B.B. King, Jimmy Reed. I fell in love with the music and it's
been a part of my life since then.
As I've gotten older I've tried to
concentrate more on playing the Blues than living them."
After teaching himself to play guitar,
Ron met the late Yank Rachell, partner of Sleepy John Estes. Yank
trained Ron on the finer points of Delta Blues, and they became
life-long friends in the process.
The actor Peter Coyote helped Ron get
his first gig in San Francisco at a neighborhood coffee shop. It wasn't
long before Ron put together the Hacksaws and was tearing it up in
clubs all over the San Francisco Bay Area.
Since then, Ron has played every major
festival in Northern California, including the Monterey Jazz Festival,
the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Marin County Blues Festival and
the Long Beach Blues Festival. Ron has also toured extensively in
Europe playing major festivals in Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland,
Germany, and Norway.
Ron has put out eight albums, which
include "No Pretty Songs", "Bar Stool Blues", "I Got
Tattooed", "Backdoor Man", "Burnin",
“Live In Holland”, “Mr. Bad
Boy”, and, “ My Songs”.
Movie credits: "The Blues Guy" in “Just Like
Heaven”, September 2005
In June of 2006 Ron put some slide guitar on a Tom Waits project,
“Orphans” released 11/21/06.
Ron has written a pulp memoir, “White Trash
Bluesman”
Burnin peaked at #19 on the Roots Music Report Blues Radio Chart
Burnin was #24 on July 2010 Living Blues Radio Chart
Quotes
"[Burnin'] shows even further development of Ron Hacker's relentless
and relentlessly authentic driving blues." -SFBlues.net
"Demonstrates a mastery of [slide guitar] that
rivals the great Elmore James...Breathes new life into some old
warhorses." -Brian
Augustine (Sierra Blues Society)
"Filled with burning slide guitar" -Dave "Doc" Piltz
"Heaping with stellar bottleneck guitar. His
voice
is a perfect match to his gritty guitar...Ron Hacker and the Hacksaws
have the goods to keep any party rocking to its end." -Craig Ruskey (Blues On Stage)
Testimonials
"Ron Hacker's blues is as real and raw as it gets. He is the San
Francisco poet of the blues who travels that big road like nobody
else." -Tom Mazzolini
(San Francisco Blues Festival)
Sound Clips
Video Clips
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Ron
Hacker and the Hacksaws - Burnin'
Style:
Blues
Ron Hacker,
slide guitar master, and staple of the San Francisco and bay area blues
scene brings us his strongest album, Burnin', featuring a mixture of
lesser known blues standards, and heartfelt and scorching originals.
From start to finish, the album burns through blues conventions with
smokin' guitar work and a stellar backing band. Waiting until the age
of 27 to take up the guitar, Ron gained his influences from artists
like Fred McDowell, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elmore James, and Yank
Rachell, along with usual suspect Robert Johnson and his most modern
influence, R.L. Burnside. Burnin’ features many of
Ron’s favorite songs, including many songs he’s
been playing since the beginning of his career, and originals that take
you through Ron Hacker’s life story.
Ron’s approach to blues is similar to that of artists from
the blues classic era, playing old-time blues, rough and raw.
Catalog
#4518 (Released June 15, 2010) |
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