The Nighthawks On the Blue Highway: On the Road with B Town Slim and the Bad Boys from Bethesda

Note:  This article was written back in 2017 and never posted.




I finally got to see Michael Streissguth's excellent documentary on a subject near and dear to my heart:  "Nighthawks on the Blue Highway:  A Film About the Hardest Working Band in America".  Watching the DVD at my good friend Ralph's house last Saturday the memories came rushing back so rather than ruin another screening of this gem of a music documentary I thought I would put my remembrances down for posterity.  This film is also timely as my first viewing coincided with the passing of Gregg Allman whose collaboration with the Hawks is covered in the film.

As background, I first saw the band warm up for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes with special guest Ronnie Spector at the Warner Theater in about 1977 and was blown away.  Since that show I have seen them dozens and dozens of times. When I moved away from D.C. (No. Va) and back to my

hometown of Minneapolis in 1979 I introduced myself to the guys when they came to town and would follow them around the upper midwest whenever they came within driving distance.



When I graduated law school in the Spring of 1986 I bought a new motorcycle for the express purpose of living my dream and following the Hawks on an extended tour of the Mid and South West.  While my classmates studied for the bar exam I was riding from town to town on a schedule that could only be described as brutal.  Any notion that the life style of professional musicians was that of the "Rich and Famous" was quickly dispelled.  But no matter how long the ride or how bad the weather, or running out of money at the end of my trip, it was all worth it because each night I was rewarded with the best in live music by one of America's greatest bands at the height of its powers.








It was humbling to see the respect they garnered around the country.  The after bar (VZD's) party I went to with Jimmy at a local musicians' home in Oklahoma City talking music and listening to Jimmy on acoustic guitar until dawn, staying at the Rodeway Inn in Austin, TX (a dump, the band stayed elsewhere) where CB Stubbs had his restaurant and where I had dinner (great juke box) and then seeing a blasted CB show up at Antones (a former Country Kitchen or Pizza Hut!) where he walked out on stage and attempted to sing (Mojo Working) but only looked foolish (you would never laugh at him as he was such a large man).  I will never forget attempting to order breakfast at his restaurant the next morning:  One of his daughters was the waitress and in response to my request for eggs and bacon she said "You can have cold beans and rice cause Daddy says we can't make any noise with the pots and pans" and then whenever someone entered or exited the kitchen there was that mountain of a man with an ice pack on his head moaning sitting at a table in the kitchen.


There was the show at Joseph's Foodliner down in San Antonio after which Thackery grabbed a case of some "exotic" beer called Corona and joined a friend and I back at our motel room drinking and listening to the greatest stories like the riot at Jimmy's 21st birthday party in Bethesda and his meeting Root Boy Slim for the first time...at one point Jimmy tried to teach me to sing like my idol Eddie Hinton.  But what I will forever remember and cherish about that trip was the final stop for me with the band on that 2 week, nearly 4,000 mile trip, in Kansas City, MO.  The night before the band had played in Wichita, home to one of the country's best blues societies and to a crowd of very knowledgeable blues fans.  One of the Hawk fans , Tim Fairhurst, Jimmy entrusted with his beloved but shabby looking fedora.   Tim promised to take it to one of the country's best hatters, Wichita Jack, to be cleaned and blocked and had it back to Jimmy the next night in Kansas City.

I had spent the last bit of cash and all the money in my bank account for a hotel room by the band at the down town Howard Johnson on the river.  The band was playing that night at the Lone Star in West Port (where video I mention was shot).  I was in a panic since the money my relatives put in my bank account was not yet electronically available and wouldn't be for 3 days.  I literally had no gas money to get back home to Minneapolis let alone food and beer money.  So even though I had been hanging out with Jimmy alot on my trip and was sadly hearing about his plan to depart my beloved band I would also hang with Jan and Mark at times and hear their perspectives.  But when my chips were down it was Mark who came through for me like a big brother.  But he wasn't just going to just give or loan me the money, that would have been too easy and set a bad example for an already spoiled child of middle class privilege, oh no he did me a favor and taught me one of those lessons I would remember for the rest of my life, he said if I would do some work for him that afternoon he would pay me by buying me dinner and then the gas money to get home.  Just the idea of hanging out with Mark for an afternoon was cool beyond my wildest dreams... I should be paying him I thought to myself.  Little did I know what I had got myself into.




I will never forget the ride to the former Kenny's Cycle Shop where I was to work off my board and gas money.  It was a blistering hot June day with a temperature approaching 100 degrees as Mark drove the band's van.  On the way there I asked Mark if he remembered one of the lines to Chuck Berry's Promised Land and he sang me the whole thing including  verses I had never heard before.  To this day how someone can memorize the lyrics to so many songs still astounds me.  We arrived at an old warehouse district of Kansas City which looked like it had seen its better days a century earlier.  When we entered the shop Mark was welcomed like the return of a prodigal son.  After numerous greeting between Mark and the owner as well as the extremely tough looking staff, the owner said "who is Rudolph?" referring to my bright red nose from nearly 2 weeks of riding.  There was a constant stream of rough looking guys showing up all afternoon long.  I later learned  from Mark that the the owner (the name Wayne sticks in my head for some reason) was known in the biker community to give jobs to men fresh out of prison which was often a condition of their parole.  It was very apparent that the shop was over staffed but I never saw him turn down a man's request for work the entire time we were there.  I found the following photo ascribed to Wayne's Motorcycle Sales and Service on the internet.  I hope I am correct in thinking his shop was the former Kenny's.


The owner and Mark had a brief discussion and then we ascended to the steaming hot upper floors that served as a parts warehouse.  Mark explained that the location had been a Harley Davidson dealership since the late 1920's until the mid 1970's when AMF took over the company.  The last ten years the owner operated as a custom bike shop but now it was time to retire and Mark had designs on his parts inventory.  We spent the afternoon picking our way through several floors of dusty OEM Harley parts which for Mark was like a kid in a candy store.  After several hours we returned to the first floor where I overheard Mark and the owner having hushed negotiations before agreeing on a price with a handshake.  After a quick estimation of how many semi loads it would take to move the inventory, Mark looks over at me and says "How about dinner?"



As I had not had much to eat the last couple of days, I was more than ready.  Mark did not take me out for just any meal but in the home of barbecue Mark takes me to Gates, but not one of the umpteen franchises that dot the greater K.C. landscape, but to the original restaurant in the heart of the African American community.  Now here is the coolest thing , Mark got the same greeting in Gates that he got from the biker crowd, and we were the only honkies in the joint.  I learned that day to be with Mark is to be treated with love and respect because that's how he treated others.

https://youtu.be/JrmZR-W9ecw



That night there was going to be quite a thunderstorm so it was suggested I ride to the gig at the Lone Star with the band.  When we arrived there was a guy setting up a professional Sony hifi camera on a tripod.  He approached the band to ask permission to film the show where to my great surprise and honor Mark and Jimmy said "take it up with our lawyer" gesturing to me.  My conditions were that it not be sold commercially without further permission and most importantly, that I receive a copy.  It turns out the guy filming was big in the nascent music video industry having just shot the new, clothespin please, Van Halen video.  Highlights that night include a fight breaking out on the dance floor , a close call narrowly missing being involved in a bad accident on the drive back to the hotel and hanging with the reggae band also staying at our hotel (if you get my splif).








My life has been so incredibly enriched by the music education I have received,  just by paying attention to the band's influences and the friendships I have made from my acquaintances in the band and their fans, simply because "I have seen the Nighthawks"!  Long live B Town Slim and the Bad Boys from Bethesda!!