Mark Pucci Media

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 19, 2010

Contact: Mark Pucci (770) 804-9555 / mpmedia@bellsouth.net

THE NIGHTHAWKS GET THEIR “WAMMIES” ON

SEMINAL DC-BASED ROOTS BAND GARNERS THREE NOMINATIONS FOR THE WASHINGTON AREA MUSIC AWARDS

WASHINGTON, DC – The Nighthawks, one of the nation’s premier roots music bands of the past four decades, have garnered three nominations for the 24^th Annual “Wammies” Music Awards celebration, to be presented on February 28 by The Washington Area Music Association at the State Theatre. The DC-based Nighthawks have been nominated for three awards in the “Blues/Traditional R&B” category for band of the year and recording of the year for their American Landscape album released in 2009; plus the band’s guitarist, Paul Bell, has been nominated for best instrumentalist. The Nighthawks were enshrined in the Association’s Hall of Fame back in 1989.

American Landscape has become one of the band’s most critically acclaimed and best- selling albums. In addition to universal praise from the press and multi-format radio play, the CD was ranked #20 on the top blues albums of 2009 based on airplay charts compiled by Living Blues magazine.

The band released its latest album, Last Train to Bluesville, on February 9, with distribution by Rip Bang Records.  Recorded live and acoustic at the Sirius/XM Satellite Radio studios in Washington, the new album features down-home versions of 10 blues classics from such artists as Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Slim Harpo, Chuck Berry, Sonny Boy Williamson and James Brown, among others. Capturing the intimate feeling of a back-porch setting, Last Train to Bluesville bristles with all the energy of a live gig and the world-class performances that fans from around the world have come to expect from The Nighthawks.     

The band’s current lineup features Mark Wenner on harp and vocals, Paul Bell on guitar and vocals, Johnny Castle on bass and vocals and Mark Stutso on drums and vocals. Stutso replaced long-time member Pete Ragusa, whose work on Last Train to Bluesville represents his last recording with the group. The set list for the new CD includes versions of a number of songs that have become “standards” in a Nighthawks set, as well as several that fans may not have heard in some time.

The Nighthawks remain one of the most-active touring bands in the land, and are booked by Blue Mountain Artists www.bluemountainartists.com.

For more information, go to www.thenighthawks.com.

SELECTED NIGHTHAWKS ITINERARY

2/19                 Fish Head Cantina                                            Baltimore, MD

2/20                 Cole’s Point Tavern                                          Cole’s Point, VA

2/27                 Deland Bike Rally (Afternoon)              Deland, FL

2/27                 Airport Restaurant (Evening)                             Deland, FL

2/28                 The Beach Shack (2-6PM)                               Cocoa Beach, FL

3/5                   The Back Room                                               Boca Raton, FL

3/6                   Aces Lounge                                                    Bradenton, FL

3/12                 Heritage Restaurant                                          Morgantown, PA                     

3/19                 Peregrine’s Lounge                                           Altoona, PA

3/20                 Café 210 West                                                 State College, PA

3/26                 The Coffeepot                                                  Roanoke, VA

3/27                 The Jewish Mother                                           Virginia Beach, VA

3/31                 KClinger’s                                                        Hanover, PA                           

4/2                   Creative Alliance @ Patterson Art Center      Baltimore, MD   

4/10                 Jammin’ Java                                                    Vienna, VA

4/16                 Moondog’s                                                      Pittsburgh, PA

4/17                 Bentz St. Sports Bar                                         Frederick, MD

THE SOUTHEAST INDEPENDENT ARTIST SUMMIT IS COMING MARCH 26-28TH, 2010 AND IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO REGISTER. TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS ARTIST EDUCATIONAL AND TALENT SUMMIT PLEASE GO TO WWW.SEIASUMMIT.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE INDEPENDENT ARTIST SUMMIT PLEASE VISIT WWW.SEIASUMMIT.COM MEDIA INQUIRIES Gardner "Gigi" Craig www.reddahliapr.com gardner@reddahliapr.com 404-254-0086 ©2010 Reddahliapr | 5675 Roswell Rd Suite 63 I Atlanta, GA| 30342| 404-254-0086

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Mark Pucci Media

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 27, 2010

Contact: Mark Pucci (770) 804-9555 / mpmedia@bellsouth.net

VIRGINIA SONGWRITER

DEVON SPROULE RETURNS WITH

NEW CD ¡DON’T HURRY FOR HEAVEN! FROM BLACK HEN MUSIC ON MARCH 16

SPECIAL GUESTS ON NEW ALBUM INCLUDE JESSE WINCHESTER

AND BJ COLE

VANCOUVER, BC – Black Hen Records announces a March 16 release date for Virginia-based singer/songwriter Devon Sproule’s new CD, ¡Don’t Hurry for Heaven!, distributed in the U.S. by Burnside Distribution. The album includes special guest appearances by Jesse Winchester, who sings vocals on the opening track, as well as British all-star BJ Cole, who plays his signature pedal steel guitar throughout.

Produced by Devon’s husband Paul Curreri, who also plays various instruments on the album, ¡Don’t Hurry for Heaven! was recorded, for the most part, in England and is the product of her spending much of the last two years touring abroad. Since Curreri was about to cross the pond for his own European tour, he flew over three days early and under his direction, the group tracked eight songs at Far Heath Studios in Northamptonshire. From there, Curreri brought the tracks back to the couple’s home studio in Virginia and completed them.   

“Last year was a good one, and full of adventures,” says Sproule. “After a whole summer of festivals in the UK, my band was feeling great. It would’ve been a shame not to capture something from that time, to let that phase of our playing evaporate into the next.  So we booked this studio out in the country.” 

Continuing in the tradition of her previous works, ¡Don’t Hurry for Heaven! sports a variety of sonic influences: the title track -- a tipsy, twangy, spousal nudge -- wears a cowboy boot on one foot, and another on its head.  On the bouncy opener, “Ain’t that the Way,” Devon sings with one of her heroes, the great Jesse Winchester. Sproule and Curreri even duet on a left-field, desert-bluesy version of Black Uhuru’s “Sponji Reggae.” 

At the record’s thematic heart is a young woman longing for the daily hiccups of a balanced home (“On a drive, nowhere going, / Gravel popping, tape deck whirring, / Happy couple talk a back road, / Face a thistle with a backhoe”), even while lifelong dreams are quite literally coming true around her.  The songs are about her friends, family, herself, her husband — or at least versions of them seen through the lens of geographical distance.  But these character sketches ring bona fide; these people seem familiar.  “I had a river growing up.  I had a pond. / I had barely a secret.  And now I have none.”  Sproule roots for the home team, and she’s telling everybody.  

Sproule’s domestic leanings, youthfulness, and romantic sense of humor are deepened by a hurling undercurrent of musical ambition and multi-genre awareness.  The album’s solo, jazz-infused closer, “A Picture of Us in the Garden,” signs off with, “Honey, how are we supposed to ever have us a family / when the business won’t give us a buck?  /  I guess it’s lucky I’m still pretty young.”  Perhaps it’s her effortless delivery of the deceptively complex melody, or her charmingly badass guitar work, or the economic poetics of her pleading, but the song throws into relief what lies at the root of all of these compositions -- an infectious vitality, a desire to push forward while continuing to  love what got you this far.  

Sproule's previous effort, Keep Your Silver Shined (2007), was called “The sexiest, sultriest southern album since Lucinda’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” by Paste Magazine and featured singing from fellow-Virginian Mary Chapin Carpenter.  Supporting the record, Sproule toured with Woodstock legend Richie Havens, Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner, and supported back-to-back nights in London with Lucinda Williams herself.  Sproule’s breakout record, Upstate Songs, was included in Rolling Stone's Critics Top Albums of 2003. The magazine also wrote: “Sproule’s vocal and lyrical beauty is unmatched.”  In December 2009 at New York's Lincoln Center, Sproule was awarded the prestigious Sammy Cahn Award for her lyric writing.  She was the first American to grace the cover of fRoots magazine in the new millennium, and her appearance on England’s trend-setting TV show, Later...With Jools Holland cocked the ears of fans and industry alike, informing them that yes, her surname does indeed rhyme with “rock ‘n roll.”  

For more information, visit www.devonsproule.com or www.blackhenmusic.com.