Muscle Shoals Rhythm Drummer Roger Hawkins Passed Away At 75

RIP

Roger Hawkins, drummer for Swampers and Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, has passed away at the age of 75 in his home. During the last years of his life, he suffered from various health issues including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Swampers was the original name of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section where Hawkins was a founding member. They’re best known for playing on classic tunes like Aretha Franklin’s Respect, Wilson Pickett’s Mustang Sally, Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, and many more.

“I was a better listener than I was a player and I think the other guys were too,” Hawkins told AL.com in a 2019 interview. “Because they loved music and they had catalogs of music in their brains, just like I had a catalog of stuff where I could pull out certain things and make it work with newer stuff.”

Born in Indiana, Hawkins is considered as one of the greatest drummers of all time. He continued to be active in the ’90s and only slowed down when he began experiencing tinnitus. Along with his Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section bandmates, Hawkins was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2008.