Customer Reviews

Love You Most of All - More Songs From Venice Bch

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I like Hawkins work alot, especially when he is alone on guitar and this one is probably my favorite. He takes great classics by folks like Hank Williams, Sam Cooke, Otis Reding and does wonderful versions of them. Makes them his songs in a really nice soulful way. Actually does the definitive version of some of these classics and I did not think that would have been possible. This is a great one.

The late-Ted Hawkins was the great busker of Venice Beach.

This recording has quite a broad collection from "North to Alaska", "Your Cheatin Heart", "Bring it on Home to Me", "Happy Days" and "Sweet Jesus".

He had a voice similar to Sam Cooke, yet more personal. He interprets every song as though he just wrote it and is singing to the listener.

This man had a hard life, though through the wash, it yielded one of the sweetest singing voices of our times with a lot of personal depth.

In my book, he is one of the most important American singers of the last 30 years.

The songs from Venice Beach were one of many high points in this marvellous artist's career. I started with the LP release of 'Watch your step' many years ago and was a fan of it for many years, and then I was delighted to hear the two Venice Beach LP's which are among my favourite records. This man's voice was and is heavenly and his interpretations are genuinly his. Many of his best are here. I especially love his version of 'San Fransisco' which he ad-libs to great ending.

If you're only going to buy one Ted Hawkins CD make sure it's not this one. (Go for "Songs From Venice Beach" or the "Next Hundred Years.")

This CD is mainly the "filler" that was cut when the original Venice Beach tapes was reduced from 2 LPs to one CD (Songs From Venice Beach.) The result is that Songs From Venice Beach has most of the best material. However, this CD does have Ted Hawkins singing "Dock of the Bay" and "Chain Gang" without which no Ted Hawkins collection is complete.

So if you're a Ted Hawkins fan you do need to buy this CD, just don't buy it first.