Watch Your Step (Ted Hawkins album) explained

Watch Your Step
Type:	compilation
Artist:	Ted Hawkins
Cover:	Watch Your Step - Ted Hawkins.jpg
Alt:	White album cover featuring words "Ted Hawkins" and "Watch Your Step" with an image of a man in a pink shirt playing guitar in front of a white building.
Released:	1982
Recorded:	1971–72
Studio:	Eldorado Recording Studios, Los Angeles
Label:	Rounder^[1]
Producer:	Bruce Bromberg Dennis Walker
Next Title:	Happy Hour
Next Year:	1986

Watch Your Step is a 1982 album by Ted Hawkins, a collection of previously recorded songs.^[2]

Release

At the time of the album's release, Hawkins was a guest of the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.^[3]

Critical reception

Trouser Press wrote: "Teaching a mighty acoustic lesson in roots music, Hawkins inhabits that secular place just outside the churchyard where gospel, folk and soul meet."^[4] Robert Christgau wrote that "these little dramas of passion, tenderness and betrayal are stamped with the sin-and-redemption of a lived life." The New Rolling Stone Record Guide wrote that "soul and blues fans need to hear this, if only to restore their faith in the dying art of emotional conviction."

Track listing

All songs were written by Theodore Hawkins, Jr. (i.e. Ted Hawkins); who also sang and played guitar on all of them.^[5]

1. "Watch Your Step" – Acoustic version
2. "Bring It Home Daddy"
3. "If You Love Me"
4. "Don't Lose Your Cool"
5. "The Lost Ones"
6. "Who Got My Natural Comb?"
7. "Peace & Happiness"
8. "Sweet Baby"
9. "Stop Your Crying"
10. "Put In a Cross"
11. "Sorry You're Sick"
12. "Watch Your Step" – Full band version
13. "TWA"
14. "I Gave Up All I Had"
15. "Stay Close to Me"

Personnel

According to an early vinyl release:

• Ted Hawkins – guitar, vocals
• Elizabeth Hawkins – vocals on "Don't Lose Your Cool" and "I Gave Up All I Had"
• Phillip Walker – lead guitar on 2, 6, 8, 12
• Arthur Woods – piano on 2, 6, 8, 12
• Ollie "Count" Gaines – bass on 2, 8, 12
• Dennis Walker – bass on "Who Got My Natural Comb?"
• Donny Tucker – drums on 2, 6, 8, 12
• David Majal Li – saxophone on 2, 6, 8, 12
• Melvin Moore – trumpet on 2, 6, 8, 12
• Ina Bea Walker and Jimmy Grisby – backing vocals on "Bring It Home Daddy"

Notes and References

1. Web site: Ted Hawkins | Biography & History. AllMusic.
2. Web site: TED HAWKINS is a singer, a songwriter, and a guitarist who for almost 30 years was a street mu.... NPR.org.
3. Web site: Sunken Treasure: Ted Hawkins’ Watch Your Step. Donal. Dineen. The Irish Times.
4. Web site: Ted Hawkins . Trouser Press . 13 October 2020.
5. Liner notes to WOLP 1