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Robert Nighthawk was an influential musician who received his first guitar and instruction from Houston Stackhouse. The two began working together at parties and jukes in the Hollandale, Mississippi, area from the late 1920s to the early 1930s (and their association continued to Robert Nighthawk’s death, his last recordings were with Houston Stackhouse [pronounced “WHO-stun,” not like the city or the street]). He worked with John Lee Hooker in Memphis and Jimmie Rodgers in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1930s. For the rest of the 30’s he worked with the Mississippi Sheiks, Henry Townsend, Big Joe Williams and others in Friar’s Point, Miss., St. Louis, and Chicago.
In 1935, he moved to St. Louis after a scrape with the law and took the name Robert McCoy after his mother’s maiden name. There he played with Big Joe Williams, Charley Jordan, Walter Davis, Henry Townsend, Peetie Wheatstraw, and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. He made his first recordings in 1937 for Bluebird (in Aurora, Il. with Sonny Boy Williamson) and was used extensively as a sideman (playing guitar or harp) on Chicago recordings of the late ’30s and early ’40s. He adopted the name “Nighthawk” after one of his early releases “Prowling Nighthawk.” Perhaps his most successful recording from this period was “Friar’s Point Blues.” For more info, see this Blues Online article (much info above is from the first 2 paragraphs).
This is from the Sunday Blues presentation:
One of the musicians he knew particularly well was Muddy Waters. In an interview with Jim O’Neal he had this to say: “I knew him before I could pick nary a note on the guitar.” They first met in Clarksdale as Waters elaborates: “We had one round circle—we all swam in that circle. Now he definitely knew Robert Johnson, because they all grew up around Friars Point way, from Friars Point over to Helena (Helena is just over the river in Arkansas), and I stayed from Clarksdale down to Rosedale, and Duncan, and Hillhouse, Rena Lara, and all them places. We had a circle we was going in.” Nighthawk even played at Muddy’s first wedding in 1932: “Robert Nighthawk played at my first wedding.” The proceedings got so raucous that Muddy’s floor collapsed.
Muddy Waters repaid the favor by getting Robert Nighthawk several recording dates with Aristocrat in the 1948-50 period (Aristocrat was the company that preceded Chess).
The Sunday Blues website has an excellent section on him, as well as being home to the Big Road Blues radio show (airs Sundays 5 to 7 pm, but after that the show is always available in the archives at the link).
His one known filmed performance with John Lee Granderson on second guitar, and an unseen drummer, “Going Down to Eli’s” aka “Gonna Murder My Baby” (a Doctor Clayton song) on or near Maxwell Street (Chicago) in 1963, starts this playlist. The songs that follow are a mix of my favorites and ones he’s known for, sometimes the same thing.
Don D.
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