Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress, and civil rights activist. She has recorded and performed with her family’s band The Staple Singers and also as a solo artist. Staples was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2017. Wikipedia
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The Beat Farmers
The Beat Farmers played an alternative, roots rock version of blues rock with raucous live shows and half a dozen album releases during their heyday. They formed in 1983 in San Diego and released their debut album Tales of the New West in 1985. The band was initially comprised of Buddy Blue – guitar & vocals, Rolle Dexter – bass, Country Dick Montana – vocals & drums and Jerry Raney –guitar & vocals. Their music was raw and gritty and featured irreverently witty lyrics. They toured relentlessly and gained a reputation as being an entertaining live act. Unfortunately, key member Country Dick Montana died in 1995 of a heart attack while performing in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada marking the end of the band.
As of 2025 The Beat Farmers are back on stage. Click Visit Site below and let them tell you their story.
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The Nighthawks
What sustains a band for more than 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; sends them home to come back again—and again. What makes that kind band stay together through relatively few personnel changes? Answer: A good idea; a universal yet somehow unique, good idea.
The Nighthawks sought not so much to reinvent rock and roll, but simply to have it reinvent 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 10 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 had its genesis when lead singer-harmonica player extraordinaire Mark Wenner returned to his native Washington, D.C. after 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 then 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 new generation of bands, sometimes called “the Blue Wave”, and released several important albums including the best-selling Jacks and Kingswith Pinetop Perkins, Luther “Guitar Junior” Johnson, Calvin Jones and Bob Margolin. (Servern Records 2017)
Could not resist the throwback video..enjoy
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Peter Himmelman
Peter Himmelman
is a man of many talents and accomplishments who is known to those who have heard of him, but haven’t heard him, as Bob Dylan’s son-in-law. He has been playing in and with bands since sixth grade in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park. (Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, Sen. Al Franken, and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman are also SLP natives.) He has released a dozen rock albums since 1986�the first half dozen on major corporate record labels, others on smaller indies, others self-released�all of which have received love from critics and none of which have sold well. The only Billboard chart on which he has ever appeared is the Heatseekers chart, limited to artists who have never had an album in the top 200. But the quality of his work has never flagged, and lately he has released some of his finest work, including Imperfect World (2005) and The Mystery and the Hum (2010). There is also an intentional oddity called Flimsy (2011), a collection of spoken-word songs ranging from the absurd to the heartbreaking. His new album, The Boat That Carries Us, now available on his own Himmelsongs label, is about motion, or being in motion, by air (“33K Feet”), by car (“Green Mexican Dreams”), or in spirit (“Angels Die”). (Read more at peterhimmelman.com)
