RON HACKER

 

Artist Biography by Steve Leggett in allmusic : 

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ron-hacker-mn0000830403/biography

One could easily say that the blues saved Ron Hacker's life. It certainly changed his life and gave him a purpose and a structure, and he developed into a powerful slide guitar player with a too-little-known but sturdy musical legacy. Born January 25, 1945 in Indianapolis, Indiana, he grew up essentially without a family, raised by an assortment of aunts, uncles, and church women. He got in trouble early and was sent to a juvenile facility after he was caught breaking into parking meters when he was 11 years old. He discovered blues music while in the facility, and after relocating to the San Francisco area, fell under the slide guitar spell of Elmore James upon hearing one of the guitarist’s tracks at a drug dealer’s house. Hacker paid five dollars for a guitar and the rest was history. After a DJ introduced Hacker to James “Yank” Rachell, who had once been a musical partner with Sleepy John Estes, he began to learn and understand Delta country-blues in earnest. 

He started to play solo gigs in the Bay area, developing a strong slide guitar style, and after eight years or so of playing solo sets, he formed the Hacksaws at the end of the '70s. The band has had several membership incarnations, but Hacker has always been the driving force. He released his first album, No Pretty Songs, in 1988 (the album was re-released with two bonus tracks in 1994). Barstool Blues followed in 1990, with I Got Tatooed (a live acoustic album) arriving in 1995, Back Door Man in 2000, Burnin’ in 2003, and both The Hacksaws Live in London and Mr. Bad Boy (a solo outing) in 2007. He also wrote a book about his life, 2005’s White Trash Bluesman, which he distributed through his website. Always crediting the blues with giving his life meaning and shape, Hacker has stated in recent years that he would rather play the blues than live them; his eighth album, Filthy Animal, released in 2011, just further proved his point.

Biography appears in https://www.last.fm/music/Ron+Hacker/+wiki

Born

25 January 1945 (age 75)

Ron Hacker was born January 25, 1945 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was brought up without a real family as his dad died when he was four years old and his mother rejected him and his brother, thus church women, aunts and uncles had to take care. All of this only helped to turn Ron into a mean-ass little kid, as he says himself.

Bad luck? Well, at least it helped him to find the blues when he - only eleven years old - was sent to the juvenile center for breaking into parking meters. There he got in touch with the blues which wasn't played in his white neighborhood. When Ron moved to the Bay Area for the first time in the 60s with his brother, he did drugs too. When he heard Elmore James stuff in one of the dealer's houses he wanted to play the blues like Elmore and that's when he bought his first guitar for five dollars.

Being white and playing acoustic slide doesn't make you a blues musician exactly, so it was Ron's lifetime luck - once he returned to Indianapolis in the early 70s - when a DJ asked him if he wanted to meet James "Yank" Rachell. Ron didn't really know who that guy was but Yank changed his life. Yank Rachell, once partner of Sleepy John Estes taught Ron about the Delta Blues and implemented one important message into Ron, i.e. he should never let these blues die. That's where Ron's mission started and where the mean-ass little kid started to turn into the great electric slide guitar player he is today.

Back in the Bay Area Ron started to play solo for eight years and then formed his first band at the end of the 70s being named the Hacksaws from the beginning. There have been various versions of the Hacksaws through all the years - some of the musicans are listed in the discography underneath. Ron's first album was actually "No Pretty Songs" which was recorded in 1988. The album features original songs and several blues standards and was re-released with two bonus tracks in 1994. The album is dedicated to James "Yank" Rachell and has several good songs to offer and most amazing is The San Francisco Men's Blues Chorus that consists of 30 (!!!) well known Bay Area blues musicans who can only be heard during the last few seconds of the song.

"Barstool Blues" is Ron Hacker's second album and a progession indeed. One reason might be that the album was recorded at The Saloon, North Beach, San Francisco which is a second home to Ron. Again most of the songs are blues standards written by people like Elmore James, Robert Johnson or John Estes and Ron really keeps that blues alive. Only "Hacksaw Man" is written by Ron and easily keeps up with the rest of the album. Nancy Wright's saxophone is a nice addition as well.

The next album "I Got Tattooed" was an all live acoustic album and as the writer of these lines hasn't had the chance to listen to it, all that can be said now is, that Ron wasn't exactly happy with the outcome. The fourth album "Back Door Man", a Saloon Recording again, is a killer album indeed and shows Ron Hacker and the Hacksaws at their best. Backed by Artis Joyce and Shad Harris, Ron created a power-trio that knows how to play and present all those old slide blues songs as if they were new. The band's fifths album - now with Ronnie Smith on drums - does just the same. It secures Ron Hacker and the Hacksaws a place among San Francisco's blues greats and if you haven't bought any of their albums yet, do so now. It can't get much better!!!