Pete Hawkes

Pete Hawkes (born 28 May 1965) is an Australian composer, musician, and mathematician. He is known for his ability to compose music from many different genres. In 2002 Hawkes won the ABC Newcastle Songwriter of the Year Award, and won another ABC award in 2009 for his instrumental works. In 2012 received a MUSICOZ Legend award. He has been a finalist on several occasions at the Australian Songwriters Association Awards, and is a writer member of the Australian Performance Rights Association (APRA). He has composed over 1200 recordings covering a wide range of different genres, including folk, jazz, jazz fusion, classical, world music, rock, ragtime, blues, ambient, and baroque.

He has collaborated with many other well known musicians, including Bert Jansch, Joe Cocker, Phil Emmanuel and Dave Swarbrick, and has supported acts including James Taylor, Martin Carthy, the Coors and Steeleye Span.

An accomplished fingerstyle and slide guitarist, his folk blues style is described as reminiscent of Nick Drake and John Martyn. His classical and cello compositions have been described as evocative and beautiful.

Hawkes has been featured in many prominent music and guitar magazines.

Hawkes has chromesthesia, a form of synesthesia where he sees sound in colors.

A number of Hawkes' musical works are now kept for preservation at the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia.

Hawkes was born in 1965 at Lake Macquarie, Australia. He learned to play guitar on an old waterlogged guitar, nicknamed "The Paddle" because his father used it to paddle home one night when he was drunk. He learned guitar by listening to old albums, citing influences as diverse as blues guitarist Robert Johnson, English guitarist Davey Graham and Bartók.

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