The Mohawks Story

Until recently we were led to believe that the principal mover behind the band was Jamaican born keyboardist Graham Hawk, Jet star's London sales representative in the early 1980's, until we looked into the background of The Mohawks and found (in true Pama tradition) a slightly different story...

The roots of the band began in the early 1960's when the young Alan Hawkshaw began playing keyboards with middle-of-the-road band Emile Ford and the Checkmates. The Hawk went from strength to strength and in no time had cut approximately 7,000 sides as a backing or session man, recording for such names as Dusty Springfield, Barbara Streisand, Olivia Newton John, a young David Bowie, The Tremeloes, Marmalade, Georgie Fame, The Merseybeats, and even (Jah help us!) Cliff Richard, and even replaced Bruce Welch in The Shadows in 1968.

Around 1967, the sides were cut which formed the basis of The Champ sessions. Cut purely for production library use, they found their way onto the Pama label, got released in 1968 and immediately became a huge success. The Champ itself hit no 4 in the national R&B singles charts, and stayed there for 10 weeks, with minor UK chart success, even though the sales exceeded 12,000 copies per week.

Led by Alan's custom built Hammond organ playing so typical of the times, The Champ is a masterpiece of lounge muzak. Loosely based around the Muscle Shoals sound, with direct influence from KPM and Chappell, Alan Hawkshaw (along with Alan Parker and Nick Ingman) creates a mood which resounds and reverberates even to this day.

Alongside Instrumental versions of sixties soul hits like Sweet Soul Music and (The) Tramp, original songs licenced from KPM, Senior Thump, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Rocky Mountain Roundabout and just simple re-takes Beat Me Till I'm Blue the album has lasted in elevators and sixties clubs all over the world. The Champ was re-discovered in the 80’s by the hip-hop community, and the organ riff from has been sampled again and again.

Alan went on to session for Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin (and is probably the organist on the infamous track of the time Je Taime), before finding his niche writing theme tunes to such shows as Grange Hill, Love Hurts and Countdown.

Much of Hawkshaw's catalogue remains underground but the album Mo’ Hawk - Mood Mosaic Vol. 7 saw a recent release on CD, and contains five tracks from the Champ sessions along with other club classics and is worth buying if you cannot get hold of The Champ.

I think what this album proves is that Pama were not afraid to release UK based music on what became known as one of the country's premier reggae label. Along with The Inner Mind and Mood Reaction, The Mohawks, represent the best in UK based soul/reggae music at the time. These bands and others like them were really ahead of their time and credit goes to the Palmer brothers for having the foresight as well as the business acumen to release the records they did.

Mohawks Discography