Bman's Blues Report

I Just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Tryin' To Get To You , from The Nighthawks and it's energy packed. Opening with Come Love , the Nighthawks have a new lead guitar player, Dan Hovey who also covers lead vocals. With Mark Wenner on lead vocal and harmonica, Mark Stutso on drums and lead vocal and Paul Pisciotta on bass and vocal, these guys can harmonize. I Know Your Wig Is Gone has a real nice shuffle pace with lead vocal by Hovey and giving both Wenner and Hovey a nice opportunity to show their skills. Very nice. Rain Down tears is one of my favorite tracks on the release with it dark easy pace and solid vocals by the crew. The guys vocal blending is strong and Wenner and Hovey each take fluid solos adding to the tension. Very nice. Chairman of the Board is a cool blues rocker with a drone bass line (we all love them) and alternating guitar and harmonica soloing and some of my favorite lead vocals on the release by Stutso . Wrapping the relea...

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, All You Gotta Do , from The Nighthawks legendary blues & roots band and it's quite good. Opening with Jerry Reed's power rocker and title track, That's All You Gotta Do , the band is humming right from the start with Mark Wenner on harp, Paul Bell on guitar, Johnny Castle on bass and Mark Stutso on drums. Hot! On Willie Dixon's, Baby, I Want To Be Loved , the band really has the spirit of Dixon's blues and Wenner's riffs are crisp and smoky. On Randy Newman's Let's Burn Down The Cornfield the band explores the darkness of the blues with super slide work by Bell, nice harp by Wenner and super vocals over a well paced blues rocker. On Sonny Williamson's shuffle track, Ninety Nine , it's all Wenner who really does a nice job of working the harp. Excellent. On original soul track, Three Times A Fool , the band digs deeply into the groove with hot vocals and cool reverb soaked gui...

Blues Music Award-Winning Band, The Nighthawks, Display Their Versatility on New CD, All You Gotta Do , Coming July 21 on EllerSoul Records WASHINGTON, DC – Legendary blues and roots band (and Blues Music Award winners) The Nighthawks, announce a July 21 release date for their new CD, All You Gotta Do . The band is also enjoying critical acclaim for Michael Streissguth’s award-winning documentary film about their history, The Nighthawks – On the Blue Highway , which is now available on DVD from the group’s website, as well as Amazon.com. The film will also be screened prior to the ‘Hawks’ June 30 performance at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson in Baltimore.       Eclectic? All over the map? The material on All You Gotta Do , The Nighthawks’ latest release, can certainly be described in these terms. Yet, throughout the nearly five decades of its career, the band has sourced songs from everywhere and anywhere. The prototype recording, Roc...