You may or may not know his name, but you will definitely know his hit song ‘The One and Only’…

It garnered him an overnight success, but just as suddenly, his success and his pay check dried up.

So, the answer is no, the song did not pay for his whole life.

There was a time when I was quite far in a hole. My income started to dry up a couple of years after I had the big success with The One and Only. My record label dropped me, and I’d been spending way too much money. I remember buying all my family a car, a studio… I wasn’t very sensible about money. I’d bought a house in west London and I was at a point where I couldn’t afford to even pay the mortgage. I was only about 23 at the time.

In a recent interview with Donna Ferguson for The Telegraph, Hawkes opened up about his life and that one song and what it all led to.

He explains how after he got himself in £20 000 debt due to his mortgage, he had a friend move in with him to cover payments. On being broke?

Because I’d experienced this crazy time where I’d had so much money, the worst thing was going from being a rich kid to not being able to buy a round, in a pretty short space of time. It was embarrassing.

Hawkes still gets royalties for the song, but not enough so that the “income would keep me in the way I’ve become accustomed”. The 43-year old and his wife and kids live in LA and are hoping to soon buy a house.

Seems like you need more than one song then…

[Source: The Telegraph]