Dwight Hawkins

Hawkins plays guitar, mandolin, saw, tenor banjo, and "dem bones." He has traveled the country playing this music, performing in streets with pickup bands, and even playing shows with the likes of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Hackensaw Boys at events like MerleFest and FloydFest. Just as often, he can be found busking in Raleigh. He's also the founder of Musical Hardware, a program that teaches schoolchildren about the accessibility of music. Hawkins wants kids to know they don't have to read sheet music to understand it, and he shows them how to do things like make instruments out of metal or buckets. Hawkins was profiled in Walter Magazine in 2015.

In addition to what he calls pre-war string band music, Hawkins is also very knowledgeable about hillbilly, hokum, and jug music. As a kid, Hawkins left Raleigh for the life of what he calls "a hobo." He jumped on his first freight train at 18 and quickly became an expert, figuring out which direction each train traveled and how to get from one city to the next without spending any money. Since then, he has been around the country eight times. It was riding trains that inspired him to leave punk rock behind to embrace the early-20th-century blues he loves today. The music is rooted in the Depression era and closely associated with freight trains and the "hobo" lifestyle.

Dwight Hawkins & Brody Hunt at River House: