Roger Hawkins

Without a doubt, 1969 is the most important year in the career of drummer, producer, and songwriter Roger Hawkins, without whom the pop music of the '70s would have sounded quite different. Competing only in importance might be the date when Hawkins first held drum sticks in his hands -- the musical kind, not fried chicken. But that date has yet to be as firmly established as the official founding of the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section, an enterprise also involving splendid rhythm guitarist Jimmy Johnson, spunky bassist David Hood, and special keyboardist Barry Beckett. For much of the following decade this became the "in" rhythm section for a variety of artists whose main concern was either chart success or the desire to achieve it.



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