About Ted Hawkins
Ted Hawkins (October 28, 1936 – January 1, 1995) 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. == Life and career == Hawkins was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. His mother was a prostitute and he never knew the identity of his father. He was sent to a reform school when he was 12 years old. As a teenager Hawkins drifted, hitchhiked, and stole his way across the country for the next dozen years, earning several stays in prison, including a three-year stint for stealing a leather jacket as a teenager. Along the way, he picked up a love of music and a talent for the guitar. "I was sent to a school for bad boys called Oakley Training School in 1949," he wrote in a brief piece of autobiography. "There I developed my voice by singing with a group that the superintendent's wife had got together." After reform school, he ended up in the state penitentiary and was released at 19. "Then I heard a singer whose name was Sam Cooke.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.