Ron Hacker and the Hacksaws

Sunday, August 14, 2011 | Blues Stage | 1pm

After teaching himself to play guitar, Ron Hacker made the acquaintance of the late Yank Rachell, partner of "Sleepy" John Estes. Yank trained Ron on the finer points of Delta Blues, and they became life-long friends in the process. The actor Peter Coyote helped Ron get his first gig in San Francisco at a neighborhood coffee shop. It wasn't long before Ron put together the Hacksaws and was tearing it up in clubs all over the San Francisco Bay Area.

Of his youth, Ron recounts the following: "The first time I got the blues, I mean really got the blues, was in 1956. A friend and I got caught breaking into parking meters. I was eleven - he was twelve. Off we went to the juvenile center.  The counselors in the center were young Afro-Americans in their twenties and they loved their music, like young dudes do. In '56 their music was Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Jimmy Reed. I fell in love with the music and it's been a part of my life since then, but as I've gotten older I've tried to concentrate more on playing the Blues than living them."

Since then, Ron has appeared at major California festivals and toured extensively in Europe playing in Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Germany, and Norway.

In June of 2006 Ron put some slide guitar on Tom Waits’ Grammy nominated CD, Orphans.  In his career, he has put out nine albums, which include No Pretty Songs, Bar Stool Blues,  I Got Tattooed,  Backdoor Man,  Burnin', Live In Holland, Mr. Bad Boy, and My Songs, and appeared in the film in Just Like Heaven, as "The Blues Guy" in September 2005.  On top of that, Ron wrote a pulp memoir entitled, “White Trash Bluesman.”  His latest CD release is Filthy Animal.