About Ted Hawkins
Ted Hawkins was an American singer-songwriter born in Biloxi, Mississippi. He split his time between his adopted hometown of Venice Beach, California, where he was a mostly anonymous street performer, and Europe and Australia, where he and his songs were better known and well received in clubs and small concert halls. A series of record producers and promoters "discovered" Hawkins over the years, only to be thwarted by circumstance and Hawkins's unconventional life. The first was the musicologist and blues producer Bruce Bromberg, who approached Hawkins about a recording contract in the early 1970s. Hawkins tentatively agreed and recorded some dozen songs for Bromberg, but Hawkins faced legal trouble and spent much of the next decade in prison and addicted to heroin. Bromberg lost contact with Hawkins until 1982, when was able to get him to agree to release the previously recorded songs as an album, Watch Your Step, which was released by Rounder Records in 1982.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.