Topic: John Mooney / Jimmy thackery

[Doc White]

Got a hold of their 1993 CD Sideways in Paradise. Lovely acoustic guitar and mandolin, mandola and mandocello. Probably what acoustic music sounded like in 1920's Louisianna. Apparently recorded in a week beside a pool, just 2 guys with acoustic instruments having fun. Chock full of lovely slide and fingerstyle blues to boot.

[jed]

Elders may remember Thackery as the founding guitarist for DC blues-based band The Nighthawks, along with (singer and fine harp player) Mark Wenner, Anton Hansmann on Fender bass and Lee Smith (now a Californian) on drums.  At the time, vinyl was the medium, and Thackery and Wenner were brought together by their mutual affinity for Little Walter, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy (made famous by Delmark's then-top album, Hoodoo Man Blues). 

Thackery left the band to go on his own in the mid-80s, making it to the King Biscuit Festival some twenty years later (as did his old DC buddy, Bobby Radcliffe).  Always an up-front, top-of-the-beat electric player.  The fact that he sat down, as Buddy Guy also had, and just hung out playing unamplified is nice to hear.

[Kokomo O]

Elders? Hey, that was uncalled for. Actually, some of my fondest memories are of the Nighthawks in places like the Cellar Door, Desperado's and the Bayou in DC in the mid to late '70s. I once found myself in traffic court in Arlington County, VA, sitting next to Mark, reading Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, and he struck up a conversation because he was the only one in the band who hadn't read it, in large measure because he did the bulk of the driving in their ridiculous schedule--they used to play about 300 gigs a year, mostly one-nighters. But, he said, he was afraid he was about to lose his license, which meant he'd soon get seat time without a wheel in front of him, and he'd be sure to read that book.

[jed]

Elders? Hey, that was uncalled for.

Yeah, so is the thing that makes us keep getting more elder!

My dim memories of the Nighthawks are mostly from the summer of 72 (drinking age!) and 73, when Radcliffe and the then-incubating 'hawks worked different nights at the Far Inn (now called "Club Soda" for some reason).  A school friend introduced me to them, and we ended up going to their place and listening to records (Little did I know that, some fifteen years later, I would work with their former drummer, three thousand miles away).  I think they work a bit less now, but the Nighthawks - and Thackery's band - were two of the hardest-working bands in the country for many years. 

[Kokomo O]

Actually, I think Thackery's band was intentionally less hard working than the 'Hawks. My understanding was he quit because he was sick of their grueling schedule--apparently they really did maintain the 300 gig per year thing well into the '90s, by which time they must have been well into their 40s. Couldn't have been easy.

I remember seeing Thackery in Englewood, NJ about ten years ago, on a night he just clicked with the crowd. Unfortunately, I had to take the babysitter home, and the other couple we were there with also had to leave, so left to I drive everybody where I had to drive them and returned to the theater at the end of the second act (the first was John Hammond, then Roomful). Got back well into Jimmy's set, and he was smokin', had the crowd on its feet, and ended up staying onstage till 1:30 in a room that normally empties by 11. At one point he asked "where did you people come from?" He could do no wrong that night, but then again, I've always thought he was a really tasteful player.

[David Kaatz]

Sideways in Paradise is a fun record.  Well recorded for a basic home recording.  You can hear crickets and other such night sounds throughout the record.  Funny story: a friend of mine who was listening to the album in her truck, stopped the truck because she thought the sounds were coming from the truck itself!
I saw Mooney at a gig in New Orleans one time and told him that story.  He said they could have removed the crickets and such from the record, but it would have compromised the overall sound too much, they felt.

D.