(David Blackwell)
By DCist contributor Elena Goukassian
If you grew up in the D.C. area in the 1970s and ‘80s, chances are you’ve heard of the Nighthawks. “They were always around,” says DC native and filmmaker Michael Streissguth. “I was surprised to learn no one had made a documentary about them; I was happy to fill that gap.”
Streissguth’s documentary, Nighthawks on the Blue Highway, opens the 10th Annual Alexandria Film Festival with a free outdoor screening at Alexandria Market Square in front of City Hall on Thursday night, followed by a live performance by the Nighthawks themselves.
A blues band for more than 40 years, the Nighthawks attracted a variety of well-respected musicians in cameo performances at the band’s height in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s—people like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Gregg Allman, who officially joined the band for a while after leaving the Allman Brothers Band in the late ‘70s. “The Nighthawks introduced white college audiences in D.C. to blues music,” Streissguth says. But for some reason, the band was never able to make it big, which is the main focus of his film.
Why didn’t the Nighthawks ever become famous? Streissguth points to a combination of its niche genre (the blues), its lack of chart hits, and its perception as a cover band. As Streissguth says, “There are so many great blues songs out there. Why not revisit them?” Yet the Nighthawks wrote their fair share of original material. “That’s the big question the film explores,” Streissguth says. “You get so close, but you don’t make it—how do you keep pushing on?”
Streissguth spent three years working on the film, trying to answer that question through interviews with current and former Nighthawks and following them on tour. “Touring is hard work,” he says. “There’s nothing glamorous about it.” He was especially moved by the devotion of Mark Wenner, the singer-harmonica player who was one of the band’s founders. He’s been with the band continuously since it formed in 1972.
“Mark believes he was put on the Earth to play harmonica and sing the blues,” Streissguth says. “We all experience success and failure in different ways; the Nighthawks are really living the human experience. If you believe you do something well, that belief in yourself will take you far. Mark is a study in belief in oneself.”
Nighthawks on the Blue Highway screens at 7 p.m. on November 10 at Alexandria Market Square, followed by a live performance by the Nighthawks, free. The movie will be broadcast next month on WHUT-TV, Channel 32, on December 6 at 8 p.m. and December 25 at 8 p.m.
The Alexandria Film Festival continues through Sunday. For more information and tickets, visit http://alexfilmfest.com.
