The Nighthawks with The Rev. Billy C. Wirtz

HE NIGHTHAWKS
current lineup for The Nighthawks is:
Mark Wenner: Vocals, Harmonica
Mark Stutso: Drums, Vocals
Paul Pisciotta: Bass
Dan Hovey: Guitar, Vocals

The Nighthawks was an idea in Mark Wenner's brain long before he was able to implement it. The musical product of pre-1958 radio in Washington, D.C., he did not know there were rules against mixing blues, R&B, honky-tonk country, doo-wop, gospel and rockabilly into one delicious stew.
In 1972, Mark, then 23, returned to his hometown after a New York City band apprenticeship eager to start a real, work-every-night band based on American roots music. He found a receptive local scene. Washington has long been a musical melting-pot of the kind that made Memphis the source point for the evolution of American music in the second half of the 20th century. It just never had a Stax or Sun record label to tell the world. As the city exploded with an influx of people from all the surrounding states during the Great Depression and World War II, Washington became a hotbed of musical cross-fertilization. When Bill Haley first brought his wacky Pennsylvania mix of hillbilly music and rhythm and blues to D.C. in 1952, people got it. And white kids like Mark found the Howard Theater – now recently restored and part of the historic top tier of the Chitlin' Circuit that included Baltimore’s Royal, Chicago’s Regal and New York’s Apollo – just a 25-cent bus ride away from the suburbs.

A Team of Veteran Players
The current members bring decades of varied experience to the stage and studio. Paul Bell has played in many influential bands around the Nation’s Capital and is the consummate D.C. guitarist, capable of soul scratching or country picking. Paul was less familiar with the classic Robert Lockwood/Louis Myers styles of Chicago blues playing than some of his predecessors, but it didn’t take long for him to add those to his bag of tricks. When he plays a slow blues solo, you can hear a little of late D.C. picker Roy Buchanan, but without the tortured hysterics. Paul spent 10 years working with legendary blue-eyed soul man and keyboardist Tommy Lepson, who subbed for Mark Wenner on a number of dates this year while Mark recovered from open-heart surgery.
Johnny Castle started his D.C. career with Crank, popular early hard-rockers who opened for Jimi Hendrix. He spent journeyman time with Eddie and Martha Adcock in the heyday of D.C. Bluegrass, mixing comfortably with legends such as Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley at festivals. After a stint with funk in an outfit called Spatz, he came through Tex Rabinowitz's Bad Boys at the height of the Rockabilly revival, splitting off to form the psycho-billy band Switchblade. In 1984, Mark Wenner developed a repertoire of material with Switchblade and together they recorded Mark’s Fugitive – a project that mixed hard rocking country classics with electric blues instrumentation (think Kentucky Headhunters). Live versions of some of those tunes can be heard on Mark's compilation, Runs Good, Needs Paint. Before joining the Nighthawks, Johnny spent a decade recording and touring with diesel-billy legend Bill Kirchen.
Mark Stutso spent nearly two decades with former Nighthawk Jimmy Thackery. Before that he played in a number of big and small-time rock bands, including Ruffryder – a spin-off of Black Oak Arkansas – and Virginia Beach-based Trix. Originally from deep in West Virginia and Southwest Virginia, Mark put in five years in the coal mines before escaping into his drum kit. He lives in Pittsburgh and has collaborated with the late Glenn Pavone and Norman Nardini. His vocals are a force to be reckoned with.

Rev. Billy C. Wirtz

Billy C. Wirtz is a teacher, gifted pianist and American musicologist who defies easy classification.

Wirtz was born in Aiken, SC, on September 28, 1954. His mother was the first woman officer hired by the Aiken police department and some of his earliest musical influences came from the inmates in the J*il listening to the gospel programs on WRDW from Augusta, GA.

In 1963, his family moved to Rockville, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The Washington DC music scene produced some of Americas’ great Soul and Blues players, from the late Sixties on. Wirtz soaked it all in and began working in record stores, skipping school and spending every dime on music, In 1971, he landed a job at Glen’s Music, a downtown store which catered to black music and clientele. “I spent all day long listening to James Brown, Marvin Gaye, and Richard Pryor. “I was in heaven,” said Billy. In 1971, he attended a gospel concert back in Augusta, Georgia. “It was a revelation to experience something like that live. It left an indelible impression on me, it changed things!”

While working at Glen’s he was also inspired by recordings of Blues pianists Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Big Maceo, and Otis Spann. He began playing piano while in high school, but it wasn’t until the tail end of his college career at James Madison University (from which he graduated with a degree in special education) that he began to seriously study music.

After graduation, as Wirtz was filling out applications to start a career in teaching, Chicago blues pianist Sunnyland Slim came through Virginia on tour. After attending a performance, Wirtz introduced himself and discovered Slim was headed to the next gig via Greyhound Bus. Billy volunteered to chauffeur the blues legend to the next show and struck up a lasting friendship. Later, Sunnyland wrote thanking Billy and invited him to stay at his home if he ever made it to Chicago – an invitation that found Billy heading to the Windy City in 1979, to accept. He stayed with Sunnyland Slim, learning directly from the master, going to Chicago nightclubs and meeting blues artists he revered as a youngster. This taste of the musicians’ lifestyle ignited the idea that he himself might make a living playing the piano. His first official blues band was Sidewinder, a group from his college town of Harrisonburg, VA, followed by a stint with the Charlottesville All Stars, his first nationally touring ensemble.

As the 80’s dawned, Billy Wirtz had already earned the reputation of being a gifted sideman and became much sought after by many Washington, D.C area roots bands, including the legendary Root Boy Slim & the Sex Change Band, Evan Johns and the H-Bombs, and the Nighthawks. By 1982, Billy had grown weary of the incertitude of freelancing and decided to embark on a solo career. About the same time Billy declared his independence his first solo LP was recorded live in a bar in Hickory, N.C., Salvation Through Polyester, on the No Big Deal label of Atlanta. In 1988, Wirtz released Deep Fried and Sanctified on the Kingsnake label – a turning point for him in many ways. “I think we originally pressed about 2000 copies of this before leasing it to Hightone in 1989 and it marked my long and productive association with that great label,” said Billy.

Writing career: Along with touring he began writing occasional articles for local music publications. “I guess it all began about 1993 when I was living in Nashville and documented the passing of Gospel Pioneer, Thomas A. Dorsey,” The obit got real nice reviews, and along with touring, a writing career began to evolve. In 1992, after a chance encounter at South By Southwest with Bob Doershauck, editor of Keyboard magazine, Bob suggested that he contribute a regular column entitled “Road Stories. When Doerschauck left Keyboard in 1995 to become senior editor of Musician magazine, he invited Billy to reprise his former role with regular installments to the “Backside” section. Somewhere in the middle of all this, there was also a side career in professional wrestling, Wirtz tells that story in “Red Headed Geek, My Brief and Painful Career as a ‘Rassln’ Manager” published in 2012 by MrExcel Publishing.

Over one hundred columns later, The Rev. continues to “connect the dots” researching Southern music and documenting the stories of those who made it. After the COVID break of 2020, he is back playing live shows, producing a weekly syndicated radio program, and writing columns. His 2021 articles have been featured in Living Blues, Forum Magazine (Florida Council for the Humanities) and The Blues Festival Guide.

Teaching:

His teaching career also continued with Blues In the Schools Programs, especially in Ottawa, Canada. He developed what he called his “Head, Hands and Feet” method for teaching younger students the basics of all music and received numerous accolades for his efforts. In recent years, he developed “Shake, Rattle and Roll” a multimedia history of the Chitlin’ Circuit and its’ artists. Billys’ work continues to this day at schools, colleges and festivals.

He lives in Ocala, Fl. With his wife Linda and eleven rescue cats.

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