" Few bands have weathered storms like Sarah Cole & the Hawkes, taking loss and turning it into something hopeful and new. Blues-guitarist Sarah Cole was still a kid when Hawke Morffi passed away in 2004, leaving his iconic Charleston, S.C. band Dunzip without their multi-instrumentalist lynchpin.
Gypsy jazz guitarist Jesse Prichard and drummer Jim Donnelly picked up the pieces, reforming a few years later as The Hawkes, in tribute to their fallen friend. But it wasn’t until the duo met Cole that the band rediscovered its soul.
“When I first played with them, we immediately felt a real connection,” says Cole, now age 19 and every bit of the blues-singing, guitar-lick ripping woman her childhood fans hoped she’d become. “We had a lot of chemistry.”
The band began inviting Cole to sit-in with them at gigs around Charleston, until she eventually showed up every time they played. Rounded out by bassist John Kennedy and harmonica player Mark Davis, the quintet spent 2011 playing across the Southeast. They’re busily at work in Donnelly’s Plowground Records recording studio on their debut LP.
Always humble in her demeanor, Cole immediately added a bit of star power to the lineup. The subject of a Charleston City Paper cover story in December 2010(insert link when posted online), Cole even caught the attention of one her biggest influences, Susan Tedeschi, when the singer/guitarist came to town. Tedeschi came out to one of Cole’s gigs, joining her on stage for a duet of “Angel From Montgomery.”
“Singing with her was like a dream,” Cole recalls. “(Susan) told me that all you’ve got to do is listen to yourself and do what your heart tells you, and you’ll be fine.”
Throwing a rock ‘n roll blues guitarist into The Hawkes mix of rootsy swing music immediately upped the ante for the band’s sound. The jams grew heavier; more Zeppelin-esque.
“I’m a patron of every kind of musician on the planet,” says guitarist Prichard, citing Professor Longhair and Uncle Walt’s Band as longtime favorites.
Evidence of that rich history can be heard on the band’s new recordings. The group treats songwriting as a shared process.
“Nobody is really the boss, so we’ll start a lyric sheet and a riff and treat it like an open canvas,” explains drummer Donnelly.
The Hawkes have also drawn from songs written by other prominent Lowcountry musicians for their LP, including Danielle Howle, Jeff Norwood, and Frank Nelson (Gaslight Street). When bassist Kennedy is away pulling double-duty as a session player for Broadway-style theatre productions, Jeff Houts accompanies the band at lives shows, adding a third, distinct vocal harmony as well.
Cole describes finding The Hawkes as a combination of ‘the right place, at the right time, with the right people.’ With the band growing in their sound and stature by the moment, the young guitarist is already experiencing her career come full circle.
During a gig at a blues festival in Georgia earlier this year, Cole invited an 11-year-old female drummer known around the area to sit in with them.
“When she got up on stage and I saw how glad her face looked to be playing with us, it reminded me of when someone was nice enough to let me jam with them,” says Cole. “It’s important to me to keep the blues alive with young people, and I feel like I’m just paying those dues back to another generation.”
Of course, Cole’s career is just beginning as well. She’s come a long way since the days when her family would take her to blues festivals around the South, guitar case in hand. A bright future that lies ahead for Sarah Cole & the Hawkes. "