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Courtesy of good old eBay, I just finally got around to getting a copy of Mo'Hawk, an Alan Hawkshaw retrospective on CD from RPM. Sadly, it's now deleted and cannot be obtained through shops or amazon, etc...

A great companion piece to Brian Bennett's 'Aim High', it features a multitude of library tunes from 1967-1975. I listened to it last night and was totally transfixed. Some great 'swinging London' grooves which put you in mind of James Bond, The Avengers, etc, through to the more easy-listening, loungey tunes which are reminiscent of The Persuaders!, right through to some slightly harsher, funkier grooves similar to those often heard in The Sweeney. I felt really at home, sprawled on my beige sofa!

My only gripe, such as it is, is that the sleeve notes are not as extensive or as revealing as those on the Brian Bennett album and there is very little to indicate who plays on which track. So, does anyone have any ideas? I know that I can hear the famous BB tom sound here and there and I'm guessing that the likes of Clem Cattini, Dave Richmond and Herbie Flowers are also involved. But any help (Phil is usually pretty good on these) would be appreciated.

An amazing album and one that I can recommend. It shall be played again tonight, me thinks...

hello,you are so right on both cds,the kpm music and their musicans really play and write excellent music,on brian bennette interview ,he mentioned that hawkshaw,parrker,richmond camore, and brian played togeter on many kpm albums,in my collection have all the kpm,music house,bruton,rsm,and noise pump cds and lps,and while in some cases you can idenify a guitar player like hank marvin,duane eddy,dick dale and link wray,to me its more diffcult to know a drummer,bass and organ player,especilly a hamond organ,but to me there is a style that bennett and hawksahw have ,that one can at least picture and in a way say yeah,thats bennett and hawkshaw on this song,but who knows for sure.,as unfortunally kpm and the other libarary labels do not give info. on the musicans who played on the album,just the composer,am still confused on alan tew,alan moorhouse and alan hawksworth,as i think they all play keyboards,and all on kpm,all the best,moondawg61

Thanks Phil. Played the CD again Saturday night, great stuff. I shall look out for his book and check out the site.

Dare I admit that (accidentally of course!) I tuned into BBC1's 'Bargain Hunt' today at about 12.30 and was very pleasantly surprised to hear 'Move Move Move' from the Mo'Hawk album used a few times during the show. Just goes to prove that, 40 or more years on, Alan Hawkshaw's music is just as relevent and in-demand as it was when it was first issued.