If there is a biography about this singer/songwriter, I do not know of it. If someone plans to write one, I hope they do it respectfully. Ted Hawkins' life was a chiaroscuro canvas of piercing light and oppressive darkness. It must be carefully rendered.

He did indeed spend some time in England, and was deported back to the United States. There is misinformation about this incident. James Foster (Texas) states that the deportation took place because Hawkins' passport had been allowed to expire. It is true that he came to the authorities' attention for a complaint of some kind, but no charges came of same. It was when he was "pulled over" and asked for ID that the passport problem came to light.

It is also true that he did hard time in the US, from what is reported this was largely if not entirely before the years in England. Some of those marks on his record left a very long shadow indeed. This accounts in part for the misinformation and talk about the England sojourn, as people learned of his past and expected the worst.

One fact that gets overlooked is that when the career connections took Ted Hawkins to England, he had a household and a family. This gets overlooked because they stayed in California while he left. The family included his wife Elizabeth (his third marriage by some accounts); she had been previously married and had children from the earlier union. Theodore "Ted" Hawkins III, however, was the son from that marriage. There were four daughters but I have yet to make out which of Elizabeth's marriages they came from.

This period of separation was amicable within the family. The career abroad kept Hawkins away for some time, I don't know how many years. When interviewed, Elizabeth Hawkins explained that the family loved Ted Hawkins enough to let him go and try what he wanted to try, and that they were supporting him if only from a distance.

There seems to be a connection with the Reverend Mable John and her Joy for Jesus ministry in Southern California; some Mudcatters may know that Mable John is a surviving sister of Little Willie John. She has her music-business resume and she pursued ministry as well. I don't know exactly how Mable John is connected to the Hawkins family but there may be a connection through marriage or something.