Hasil Adkins (April 29, 1937 – April 25, 2005) was a rockabilly singer, songwriter, and musician born just south of Madison in rural Boone County, where he lived his entire life. Adkins—whose first name was pronounced “Hassel” —was the youngest of 10 children and grew up in a tarpaper-covered shack rented from a local coal company.

He attended school through ninth grade but officially dropped out six days into his 10^th-grade year. By age 16, he had started focusing on playing guitar. Having heard artists like Hank Williams only on the radio, he mistakenly believed they each played all the instruments on their recordings. As a result, Adkins developed a unique one-man-band style, simultaneously performing vocals, guitar, harmonica, and drums.

Lacking the money for a drum set at first, he stomped his feet for percussion. “The Haze,” as he became known, later added a kick drum, a cymbal, spoons, and a washboard to his setup. His 1961 debut 45 included “She’s Mine," backed with “Chicken Walk." Adkins handled his own promotion, creating cut-and-paste flyers and mailing copies of his records to radio stations and even public figures, such as President Richard Nixon.

In the 1970s, Adkins began self-medicating, and his increasingly erratic lifestyle was reflected in his songwriting. Songs like “No More Hot Dogs" featured dark themes of decapitation and violence. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Adkins had faced a series of personal challenges, including multiple DUI arrests, turbulent relationships, and even a shootout, marking a low point in his life.

It was during this period that his music began to gain wider attention. Miriam Linna, the original drummer for The Cramps, encouraged the band to cover Adkins’s “She Said," which introduced his work to a broader audience. Linna and her husband, Billy Miller, who would become Adkins’s manager, brought him to New York City and arranged live performances. In the mid-1980s, the couple founded Norton Records to showcase Adkins’s music. In 1986, they released his first album, Out to Hunch, a compilation of his homemade recordings from the 1950s and ‘60s, sparking newfound interest in his work.

In 1987, Norton released The Wild Man, Adkins’ first professional studio album, which was named “Rock Album of the Week” by The New York Times. A feature article in the rockabilly fan magazine Kicks further boosted his popularity. Despite ongoing struggles with depression following his mother’s death, Adkins remained active with the help of Norton Records. He released Poultry in Motion, a collection of chicken-themed songs—one of his favorite topics—and made occasional film appearances. He was featured in director Julien Nitzberg’s short documentary The Wild World of Hasil Adkins.

Adkins performed sporadically, primarily in the Charleston and Madison area, in the 1990s and early 2000s. Hasil Adkins died in 2005 following an ATV accident in his yard. He was posthumously inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2018.