Six String Venues

Two of the area’s most talented and experienced guitarists will perform some classics and original works at The Cary Theater on January 11, 2018 at 8pm. Each artist will perform their own set and a few together as they showcase their award winning abilities.

The Bluegrass Experience got started, as they often do in this bluegrass rich region, with six friends competing together at the many fiddlers conventions in western North Carolina. When they won the World’s Championship Bluegrass Band at The Union Grove Fiddler’s Convention in 1972, the Experience was off and running, becoming a fixture at the Carlton Haney festivals and finding plenty of dates on the burgeoning college music scene.

The original Nighthawks lineup solidified in mid-1974. Bringing together frontmen Mark Wenner and the young Jimmy Thackery with a veteran rhythm section, Jan Zukowski on bass and Pete Ragusa on drums, the quartet ruled the highways and honky-tonks until Jimmy’s departure in 1986 to pursue a solo career. The band opened many doors and forged many touring routes for their contemporaries, including the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray, and played with as many Blues and Rockabilly legends as they could. They opened show after show for Muddy Waters, James Cotton and Carl Perkins, and backed up and recorded with John Hammond and Pinetop Perkins.