december hasn’t been a good month for this blog. and doesn’t promise to get much better. so, before we go on an xmas mini-break, here’s something a little different: a good early show by bethesda’s own nighthawks, at the gone-but-not-forgotten cellar door. wow, what a venue! although i actually went to desperado’s, across the street, a lot more (more of this sort of music, and a bit cheaper which also helped).
i’ve never seen an audience or soundboard recording from desperado’s. a quick search on dime turns up one, a 1980 albert collins show that looks pretty good, so i’m downloading that. the description accurately calls it a “smoke filled bar”. haha! actually, the balcony there would have been a perfect place for taping, so it’s kind of funny that there’s not more. opportunities missed…
anyway, this was uploaded to dime as a single untracked flac… i’ve tracked it. it’s a great show and a good example of one of my favorite bands at the time (along with the allstars from charlottesville va, that’d make two). i don’t know the lineup, but it was probably the same as normal for that period: mark wenner – harmonica & vocals; jimmy thackery – guitar & vocals; jan zukowski – bass; pete ragusa – drums & vocals. there’s a bit of a ‘hawks floooooood going on right now, so i’ve stocked up on vintage 70’s & early 80’s nighthawks, including the george thorogood show when
the nighthawks were playing a gig across the street at a place called desperados at the same time the destroyers were playing here at the cellar door. the destroyers and the nighthawks were playing “madison blues” at the exact same time, so george and jimmy thackery (lead guitar and vocals for the nighthawks) walked out of their own gigs, passed each other in the street and joined with the other band. both george and jimmy sang a few verses and soloed a bit with the opposite band and returned to their own gigs to finish out the song!!!
now if i could only get my hands on the nighthawks side of that…
the nighthawks w/ pinetop perkins
the cellar door, georgetown
washington, dc
23 july 1975
1 shake and fingerpop [l.t.horn, a.dewalt, w.j.woods] (5:54)
2 tripe face boogie [b. payne, r. hayward] (3:06)
3 bright lights, big city [jimmy reed] (3:43)
4 (tuning) (0:57)
5 meet me in the bottom [john lee hooker] (4:00)
6 memo from turner [mick jagger, keith richards] (4:03)
7 i’ll go crazy (2:32)
8 intro to second show (0:17)
9 bring it on home [teddy reig, henry williams] (2:57)
10 can’t get next to you (3:35)
11 next time you see me [bob weir, robert hunter] (3:17)
12 (chat) (0:43)
13 little by little (2:33)
14 (chat) (0:23)
15 that’s alright [jimmy rogers] (3:10)
16 tripe face boogie [b. payne, r. hayward] (3:06)
[dead air 0:40 omitted] (–)
17 (intro for pinetop perkins) (0:58)
18 red hot mama (fine little mama) [elmore james?] * (6:04)
19 it hurts me too [tampa red, elmore james] (7:37)
20 madison blues [elmore james] (4:36)
21 shake your moneymaker [elmore james] (5:31)
tt 1:09:01
* pinetop perkins on piano
the show was seeded on dimeadozen as 1 un-tracked .flac file in dec-2014. i’ve tracked it, trimming 4-5 seconds
of dead air at the start & end, and 40 seconds of dead air between tracks 16 & 17 (actually, it sounds as if the
two tracks overlap a bit; that overlap was in the original). btw, to me it seems both that the first song might
have been cut & faded in, and also that the first show seems a bit short; that might just be me, but i suspect
that this is not the complete show (i.e. i think that the beginning of 1st show is missing).
this was seeded (presumably in a tracked version) on dime first april 2007 (#140917) and again in
july 2009 (#256305), both times by “dub_irie”. at this point (dec-2014) i don’t find dub_irie listed on dime.
source per original info file
2 shows/sets opening for muddy waters
stereo audience recording
unk mics/rec > c > c > d
additional source:
flac (source as above) > cd wave editor (tracking) > flac
samples
10 can’t get next to you (3:35)
13 little by little (2:33)
download: Nighthawks_1975-07-23_CellarDoor_DC.zip