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Rebel Payne on stage with The Hawks, August 1960. Photo from the archives of Serge Daniloff.

Rebel Payne

When Robbie Robertson switched from bass to lead guitar in the Hawks in 1960, taking over the job from Roy Buchanan, Ronnie Hawkins hired Rebel Payne from Buffalo as their new bass player. Payne stayed with the group until the summer of 1961, when he was replaced by 17 year old Rick Danko.

Rebel Payne left Hawkins in the summer of  '61. They played the whole summer in Grand Bend that year and Hawkins was pretty hard-nosed about the band drinking before they went on stage. Rebel had been warned a couple of times already. On the ill-fated day Rebel had been drinking with Lynn Staten from Grand Bend, Henry Balas from London and myself. We had been pounding them back all day and Reb was pretty far gone when we dropped him off. As soon as Hawkins got a look at him he sacked him on the spot. The next day there was a new bass player. Levon Helm was kind to Rebel in his book, but this is the true story. I felt kind of a little guilty because we knew that he had been warned but Grand Bend was a wild place back then and partying was what we did...
--Bill Arnold, Canada, May 2003


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