NCFBS Presents: The Nighthawks w/ Reverend Billy C. Wirtz
NCFBS PRESENTS:
THE NIGHTHAWKS
DOORS AT 7:00PM / MUSIC AT 7:30PM
INDOOR SHOW, ALL AGES, SEATED
The Nighthawks have built a reputation as a live band touring, and where often called the hardest working band in America. The Nighthawks have entertained audiences all over the world with their unique blend of Blues, rock, soul, R&B, rockabilly and swing. Their hard driving, soulful, and sometimes raucous live performances earned them a reputation as "the world’s best bar band." There was a documentary recently made about them, Nighthawks on the Blue Highway.
Mark Wenner has fronted the Nighthawks since 1972, and the original lineup of the quartet ruled the highways and honky-tonks, opening many doors and forging many touring routes for their contemporaries, including the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray, and played with as many Blues and Rockabilly legends as they could. They opened many shows for Muddy Waters, James Cotton and Carl Perkins, and backed up and recorded with John Hammond and Pinetop Perkins.
“Our sound is based on a Chicago Blues band, but we could always do a country song or an old rock-and-roll song — or even something by a contemporary songwriter or a Motown kind of song,” Wenner said.
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REVEREND BILLY C. WIRTZ
OPENS THE SHOW
Opening for and playing with the Nighthawks is Ocala native Reverend Billy C. Wirtz, a comic genius, gifted pianist and American musicologist who defies easy classification. "I like to think of myself as the Victor Borge of the Blues," states Wirtz, but he goes way beyond Borge both in scope of subject matter (from politics to social commentary) and, of course, in taste. In fact, no theme is too extreme, taboo, or undignified for the Reverend, so long as it garners a good laugh.
Likely the only person on earth to be mentored by Chicago Blues legend Sunnyland Slim and also to work with Root Boy Slim, Wirtz has also worked with the Nighthawks for decades.
