"After an absence of several years, playing mostly juke joints in the south, Nighthawk returned to Chicago and attempted to reestablish himself on the local blues scene. Competition was tough for Nighthawk who didn't play in the popular styles of the day. Nighthawk did find some club work and supplemented this by playing at the Maxwell Street open air market on Sunday mornings during the warm months. Johnny Young and John Wrencher often backed Nighthawk while playing on Maxwell Street. Nighthawk related his dissatisfaction with Chicago to writer Don Kent: 'the only work he could get was one-nighters in small bars, hustling on Maxwell Street and a job as a sideman on one Chess session. He told me he frankly preferred the South. It was cheaper, apt to be less violent than the City, and he was better known.' Nighthawk benefited somewhat from the blues resurgence of the 1960's and was written up and recorded by blues fans and scholars. In fact 1964 was his busiest year on record in some time. He also was filmed in a documentary about Maxwell St. called 'And This Is Free' as well as recording for the Chess, Decca and Testament labels. Pete Welding had formed Testament records in the early 1960's as one of the handful of pioneering labels started by blues enthusiasts. Of the label, Welding noted: I started Testament Records in 1963 to issue some of the recordings of blues and black folksong I had been making over the previous four or five years. During that time I had recorded, first in my hometown of Philadelphia and then in Chicago where I moved at the beginning of 1962, a fair number of artists whose music, I felt, deserved to be heard. Having a good-paying job at the time, I didn't have to worry overmuch about the records paying for themselves, so I put out what I thought was interesting and worthwhile. Come to that, Testament never had any commercial pressures behind its releases, so these were as irregular as they were unusual and, I hope, valuable in documenting a number of the music's overlooked genres and performers. some unreleased sessions. 'He recorded Nighthawk with his partners Johnny Young and John Wrencher on October 14, 1964 cutting seven sides. The chemistry between the three is evident but it was Nighthawk, above all, who commands attention with his remarkable guitar work and his powerful but understated singing.' ..."
Sunday Blues
Discogs: Robert Nighthawk / Houston Stackhouse – Masters Of Modern Blues (Video)
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