What sustains a band for nearly three decades? Not a hit radio band, but a roll-up- your-sleeves/drive to the next gig overnight/carry your own gear up the steps and night after night make people happy kind of band. One that makes them dance; send them home to come back again - and again. What makes that kind of group of people stay together through relatively few personnel changes? (The last player to depart had been in the band over thirty years.) Answer: A good idea; a universal yet somehow unique good idea.

The Nighthawks sought not so much to re-invent rock and roll, but simply to have it re-invent itself by taking the original ingredients and following - if somewhat loosely - the original recipe. And like good cooks, the individual personalities involved ultimately affected the outcome. The band was over ten years old and had baffled the mainstream industry before the term “roots rock” was coined to explain the likes of West Coasters like Los Lobos and The Blasters. By then, the affiliation with many of the living blues greats seemed to brand The Nighthawks a “blues band,” despite the fact that they played with Carl Perkins as well as Muddy Waters.

The Nighthawks band had its genesis when lead singer/harmonica player extraordinaire Mark Wenner returned to his native Washington, D.C. after spending six years in New York City, lured back by the success of his friend Bobby Radcliff's local acclaim with a blues band. Mark joined forces with a very young Jimmy Thackery and formed The Nighthawks in 1972. They spent a couple of years building The Nighthawks' reputation with a revolving cast of characters until, in 1974, they decided to get the best rhythm section the area had to offer: Jan Zukowski on bass and Pete Ragusa on drums. 

The Nighthawks set off on a musical mystery tour that took them to 49 states and a dozen countries. They played with nearly all the living blues legends as well as a n ew generation of bands sometimes called “The Blue Wave,” and released several important albums, including the best-selling Jacks and Kings with Pinetop Perkins, Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, Calvin Jones and Bob Margolin.

In 1986, Jimmy Thackery left to start a solo career. The band meandered briefly, backing up John Lee Hooker and Pinetop Perkins and touring the East Coast with Elvin Bishop. A series of shows with guest-star guitarists including Steuart Smith, Warren Haynes, James Solberg and Bob Margolin led to a multi-year collaboration with Jimmy Hall (Wet Willie) and Jimmy Nalls (Sea Level). After their departure in 1990, a young Danny Morris joined as guitarist; his fine work can be heard on the albums Trouble and Rock This House. Danny's pursuit of a solo career allowed Pete Kanaras a nine-year run with the band, leaving a recorded history of Pain and Paradise, Still Wild and a DVD performance with blues legend Hubert Sumlin. 

In early 2004, after 30 years as a Nighthawk, Jan Zukowski decided it was time to move on. Pete Kanaras had left by then as well. As luck would have it, Paul Bell and Johnny Castle were ready, willing and able to join up in 2005 and have since helped to re-invent the group.

Paul Bell first sat in with the band in 1975. He paid his dues in a guitar town where he became known for his versatility and taste. As a true D.C. player, he plays a Fender Telecaster (The Rhodes Tavern Troubadours sing it: "D.C.'s a Telecaster town”). Sure, there are some Strat cats and Gibson guys and Paul Reed Smith is from D.C., but after Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton and Steuart Smith, the canoe paddle is the choice of the D.C. faithful. And Paul, like his predecessors, knows a D.C. picker must be at home with country cluckin' and soul chuck-chuck-chuckin’ to be "ignant" in the low down blues or raw rockabilly, and then slip through the augmented and diminished chords of some serious jazz. Paul has brought great vitality and attitude to the performing stage and a vast wealth of recording experience into the mix. It was, in fact, after a recording session where Mark Wenner and Paul, playing slide on a beautiful steel Dobro, sat improvising on some blues licks, that Mark asked Paul to join the band. Quite a few great guitarists have played extended years in The Nighthawks, including Jimmy Thackery, Jimmy Nalls, Danny Morris and Pete Kanaras, as well as short timers like James Solberg, Warren Haynes, Steaurt Smith and Bob Margolin. And Paul stands tall among them.

Then there's Johnny Castle. Not John; Johnny, like the guy in “The Wild One.” Johnny and his bass are one. He has crossed every genre in the D.C. world of genre crossing. Johnny made a name playing in Crank, D.C. early hard rockers that even opened for Hendrix. He was the first electric bass player on the new grass blue grass circuit, mixing it up with Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley and clogging his way past the purists. He did a stint with the soul rockers Spatz, through Tex Rabinowitz's Bad Boys as they morphed from pure rockabilly to the psycho/punkabilly of Switchblade, and on to a decade with Bill Kirchen. Somewhere in there, Johnny managed a couple of tours subbing for Jan Zukowski with The Nighthawks on some all-star blues packages that included John Lee Hooker, John Hammond, Pinetop Perkins and Elvin Bishop. And stylistically, it has been observed that if Jan played much like Paul McCartney, Johnny is totally Bill Wyman. Yet unlike Wyman, Johnny has a huge presence on stage, thundering around like an unleashed pro football linebacker. No stranger to the studio, Johnny has also penned many a tune, two of which found their way onto the new Nighthawks CD. And he sings real good, too!

It can be quite a challenge for a band that has recorded and released over two dozen albums over the past 35 years to come up with something new. It must have continuity with the past yet show something innovative, not only in material but overall sound as well. It must capture the energy and excitement of a live show but have production qualities beyond a mere live recording.

After a frenzied couple of years with Paul Bell and Johnny Castle on board, the first move was to record a live show. Blue Moon in Your Eye, a CD and DVD package, was recorded at the Barns at Wolf Trap in 2006 and released later that same year. It certainly gave people a taste of the new band and a glimpse of things to come.

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

Again the band kept up the pace touring and in 2008 began to sort through the material that would become the band’s latest CD, American Landscape. The songs have been road tested and have been found to run extremely well and handle in the turns. Plus they have enough nice paint and chrome to catch the eye without being “trailer queens.”

The opening track, “Big Boy,” is from one of the amazingly little known L.A. bands, The Imperial Crowns. As with so many west coast bands, The Nighthawks first encounter with the Crowns was at a festival in Holland. Their unique approach and outrageous presentation totally captured the crowd, including Mark and Pete, who later connected the Crowns to Ruf Records for their second release, Hymn Book. The swinging, almost reggae groove of “Big Boy,” overlaid by the raw slide of J.J. Holiday and the fat tone of Jimmie Woods lyrical harp is not your ordinary white boy blues by a long shot. And the story in the song places it with some of best surreal American lyrics, like The Band's “The Weight” and Eddie Hinton's “The Well of Love.”

”Down In the Hole,” Tom Waits' eerie masterpiece, is, of course, the theme song from HBO's critically-acclaimed series, The Wire. Every season showcased a different version of that song and the ‘Hawks’ version is based primarily on the Blind Boys of Alabama's. The Nighthawks did not learn the song until after Steve Earle recorded his take for the final season of the show, but include theirs as a tribute and thank you to producer/director/writer David Simon, who not only scattered Nighthawks' tunes through the series but included the band in a barroom scene in episode one of season two. The band can be seen setting up during the action and plows into their version of “Sixteen Tons” from Rock This House (1993). If there had ever been a video of a Nighthawks tune that showcased the rocking blue collar appeal of the band this would be it.

A Dylan song? Mark remembers playing harmonica to the original recording of “She Belongs to Me” during his infancy as a player and included a version of it on his solo effort with the BelAirs, Mama Tried. It was Paul Bell's dramatic approach to the guitar part that made this song a must to record.

Ike Turner's “Matchbox,” sung by Pete Ragusa, is not only a tribute to one of primary inventors of rock and roll (despite his personal misbehavior -Ike's, not Pete's), but a chance for the band to strut some swinging straight up blues before the blues police send out the troops after the first three tunes.

”Where Do You Go” is a Johnny Castle original, and the very first time it was performed live the band could see dancers singing along with the chorus. That would qualify it as an instant hit. It was a frequently request before the tape even started rolling.

“Try it Baby,” penned by Berry Gordy and originally recorded by Marvin Gaye, is a sneak preview of what may be the next Nighthawks release. Except for the lead guitar, the track is completely acoustic and swings in the realm of the classic Hawks' version of Buddy Johnson’s “Pretty Girls and Cadillacs,” still one of the most requested tunes in the band's repertoire. Marvin Gaye's Motown hits have frequently been successfully translated into guitar driven rock and roll, and The Nighthawks mined that source on a version of “That's the Way Love Is” on the 1999 release, Still Wild. And, although associated with the Motor City, Marvin Gaye was from Washington D.C.

“Jana Lea,” another Johnny Castle original, is a tribute to Johnny's lovely wife. It is pure rockabilly of the swinging-est and is irresistible on the dance floor.

Lazy Lester's “Made up My Mind” is raw chunka-chunka blues. Lester's style, along with fellow Excello artist Slim Harpo, were fundamental in the elements of Mark's approach to the harp: keep it simple. Not unusual that D.C.'s premier blues DJ, “The Gator,” uses a Lester instrumental for his theme music.

Pete again proves he is one soulful white boy on Sam and Dave's “Don't Turn Your Heater Down,” as well on as Dan Penn's “Standing in the Way.” Both of these carry deadly dance grooves as well.

Another Dylan song, “You Go Your Way,” is a send-off to those previous relationships that have gone their separate ways.

And the band sends you home with another acoustic tune, the immediately recognizable theme from The Andy Griffith Show; fast, swinging and with a delightful sense of fun.