There is an absolutely brilliant scene where he's telling Robbie Robertson the good news, and Robertson is just stunned. First he says, "Well it must have been all that clean living" and they both start laughing. Then later in an interview, still not having completely absorbed the good news, he says something to the effect of, "Oh great you go around telling everyone you've got terminal cancer, and now you say, 'Just kidding.' Don't expect any of us to believe you the next time you say you're dying."
Pancreatic cancer is a death sentence from which no one is supposed to recover. Somehow or other Ronnie Hawkins managed the impossible. It's not something that's easy to believe when you just hear about it, even without the "faith healing" element involved. But we know it happened because of the amazing record of the events that was kept by director Anne Pick and her extraordinary documentary Ronnie Hawkins: Still Alive And Kickin'
If you know who Ronnie is you'll want to see this film to get to know him a little better as a human being. What's great about Ronnie is that it turns out that he's pretty much what you thought he was like. He really is rough and tumble with a heart of gold.
For those of you who don't know Ronnie, all I can say this is a great opportunity for you to make up for lost time, and to count your blessings that he's still around for you to get to know. Whether it was the "good clean living" or "the whisky, pot and faith healin'" that kept Ronnie with us, we will never know. All I know is the world is a lot brighter a place with him in it.
Bill Clinton summed it up best when he said, "If more people were like Ronnie Hawkins, the world would be a lot better place to live in."
Article comments
1 - PAT LEHMANN
I knew Ronnie back in the late 50s and early sixties at the Cozd'or in Toronto.Always a gentleman. In those days it was nothing normal to relate to girls in the clubs as chics and broads. Ronnie never did that to my girlfriend and I. He's talk to us after his show and if we didn't have to be home right away he'd treat us to a steak at a restaurant down the street and then say goodnight. I am almost seventy now and still remember him.