Wendy DeWitt, Dave Hawkins

From Seattle to Paris Wendy spreads the gospel of Chicago based blues piano and boogie woogie. She's well steeped in the stylings of Otis Spann, Memphis Slim, Sunnyland Slim and Albert Ammons - the greats of boogie and blues, and honed her skills working with contemporary artists Steve Freund, Otis Rush and the late Hank Ballard who's love of the blues showed in all of his rock classics.

Wendy has appeared with Charlie Musselwhite, Otis Rush, and Etta James and has been featured at Berkeley's historic venue, Freight and Salvage. She performed at the Cincinnati Blues Fest at the internationally acclaimed Arches Piano stage, headed to Boston with Hank Ballard and the Midnighters for a performance at the Boston Symphony Hall and played before a sold out audience at the San Diego Museum of Art with Hadda Brooks in what proved to be one of Hadda's last shows. Wendy has performed at many major festivals including Peer in Belgium, San Francisco Blues Fest, and Monterey Blues, and Jazz Fests.

Solo or with her band Wendy puts on a high energy show. Material is either written by Wendy or reinvented in her style and delivered with passion. Wendy is afraid of no guitar player and has opened solo for Jimmy Thackery and the drivers and Deborah Coleman.

Along with her busy performing schedule Wendy is the producer of the Queens of Boogie Woogie shows around California and the Blues Piano Orgy productions in the San Francisco Bay Area. Songs from Wendy's six albums are heard on radio around the world and she has been a frequent guest on the nationally syndicated West Coast Live.


Called a "male Nanci Griffith" and compared to Steve Goodman, Harry Chapin and Peter Yarrow, Dave Hawkins is the songwriter's songwriter and the audience's performer. He feels equally comfortable sharing the stage with performers as diverse as Folk legend Tom Rush and Rock & Roll icon Ian Anderson as he does singing with a group of grade schoolers.

Dave Hawkins is a cross-over artist with a broad base of Folk and Celtic fans in the Midwest, New England and Western United States, as well as Europe. Dave is an accomplished musician who has led bands for over thirty years, released fourteen recordings and appeared as a special guest on seven more!

Dave has recorded and performed with the finest in the world of music - Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Sam Bush,AoifeClancy, Joanie Madden, and John Whelan to name a few. His 6th solo release, Manchester Mornings(2005), was recorded in Nashville by multiple Grammy Award winning Producer and Engineer, Bil VornDick. The CD is still making waves in Folk, Folk-Rock and Country-Folk music circles. Both Manchester Mornings and his 2002 release Hotel deVille were under consideration for Grammy nominations and include the talents of John Mock of Nanci Griffith's band, Sam Bush, Tom Roady of the James Taylor and Aretha Franklin bands, Mark Fain and Andy Leftwich of Kentucky Thunder, Randy Kohrs of the Dolly Parton Band, Peter Huttlinger of the John Denver Band and, of course, members of his own Dave Hawkins Band. Dave's 7th full-lenght release, Best That I Can (2011) was recorded in Erlanger, KY and featured the talents of Southwestern Ohio and Kentucky artists. This recording has been receiving critical acclaim in the US and Europe.

With over fourteen recordings to his credit and seven solo albums in the past ten years, Dave Hawkins has proven himself as a recording artist and songwriter with staying power. His repertoire consists of pithy songs about loves won and lost, baseball, kids, big cities, small towns and "just because." From the jilted lover's perspective or the eyes of an old man's dog, Dave has an ear (and heart) for life's little quirks.