Ron Hacker

One could easily say that the blues saved Ron Hacker's life. It certainly changed his life and gave him a purpose and a structure, and he developed into a powerful slide guitar player with a too-little-known but sturdy musical legacy. Born January 25, 1945 in Indianapolis, Indiana, he grew up essentially without a family, raised by an assortment of aunts, uncles, and church women. He got in trouble early and was sent to a juvenile facility after he was caught breaking into parking meters when he was 11 years old. He discovered blues music while in the facility, and after relocating to the San Francisco area, fell under the slide guitar spell of Elmore James upon hearing one of the guitarist’s tracks at a drug dealer’s house. Hacker paid five dollars for a guitar and the rest was history. After a DJ introduced Hacker to James “Yank” Rachell, who had once been a musical partner with Sleepy John Estes, he began to learn and understand Delta country-blues in earnest. He started to play solo gigs in the Bay area, developing a strong slide guitar style, and after eight years or so of playing solo sets, he formed the Hacksaws at the end of the '70s. The band has had several membership incarnations, but Hacker has always been the driving force. He released his first album, No Pretty Songs, in 1988 (the album was re-released with two bonus tracks in 1994). Barstool Blues followed in 1990, with I Got Tatooed (a live acoustic album) arriving in 1995, Back Door Man in 2000, Burnin’ in 2003, and both The Hacksaws Live in London and Mr. Bad Boy (a solo outing) in 2007. He also wrote a book about his life, 2005’s White Trash Bluesman, which he distributed through his website. Always crediting the blues with giving his life meaning and shape, Hacker has stated in recent years that he would rather play the blues than live them; his eighth album, Filthy Animal, released in 2011, just further proved his point.