Kevin Hemphill & The Nightbirds

Blues has always been at the heart of everything that Kevin Hemphill (guitar/vocals), Matt Asbury (bass) and Bill Dowe (Hammond/piano} have ever played. So it made perfect sense for them to be playing the music they loved – blues! Guitarist Kevin Hemphill, a Greensboro, NC native and a regular on the local music scene (since Junior High School), started his music career in a metal band called “MINDS IN MOTION” and later, “ILL CONCEIVED”. Kevin recalls that “ILL CONCEIVED was music you could sink your teeth into. I lived that band day and night for so many years.”
Kevin heard his first SRV song at a party sometime in the late 90’s. That was the moment that his musical path was made clear—“I had to play the music that I felt would project all the emotion, expression and raw power that the blues had to offer”.
This experience led him to answer an ad for a “bluesy” guitar player in a local music paper. The band was “NIGHT SHIFT” and that’s where Kevin met Matt (the bass player) for the first time.
Bassist Matt Asbury and Hemphill left “NIGHT SHIFT” and formed “SOULCANDY”. After playing over 80 shows in 19 months, “SOULCANDY” went their separate ways. Kevin and Matt then started “BETTER OFF BOUND” which rolled along for almost 120 shows in 18 months but ultimately did not fulfill the two’s creative muse. After taking a short break from the local music scene, Kevin and Matt started jamming on the music of SRV and decided that they wanted to get back to their love – the blues.

They began rehearsing and jamming on many blues standards (with the aid of a drum machine) until a decision was made to start auditioning drummers. They knew they wanted to form what Gov’t Mule members Warren Haynes and Allen Woody called a “power blues trio”. “We wanted a good solid drummer who could improvise and share our love of the blues” stated Matt.
Wood-shedding for a few months and methodically laying out their song list, the group was at the point where they felt they could get out and start playing for the people and fans who knew something “BIG” was ready to happen. On August 27th 2005, the band played their first show at Whiskers Roadhouse in Floyd, VA in front of a full house of beer drinkers and hell raisers. “It was one of those nights that everything just clicked” said Matt. “We were ready for the fans and the fans were ready for us”. The show was a major success and it opened many doors for us even to this day…

In December of 2005, the band independently released their first CD, entitled "From the Beginning". The band's first single, a cover of the SRV instrumental "So Excited", spent 2 weeks at # 1 on the Soundclick.com World-Wide Blues Charts in July, 2005. The next single, "Got My Mojo Workin” spent 5 weeks on the chart, peaking at # 4 back in December, 2005. “Further On Up the Road” spent 10 weeks in the Top Ten of the Soundclick World-Wide Blues Charts in early 2006.

This “power-house trio band” has always entertained the notion of one day adding to their already established sound an organ/piano player, preferably a Hammond Organ type of sound, to blend with them. “We tried some keyboardist out but there was either a personality clash or just a musical clash. We all kept our eyes and ears opened” stated Matt.

On a particular slow night at the hospital where Matt works as a nurse, he was talking to one of his fellow nurses who shared a love of the blues. She told Matt about her boyfriend Bill, who plays keyboards and piano. She said, “I think he has a Hammond Organ”. Matt almost hit the floor and said, “How do I get in touch with him?” She said, “I’ll call him now”. This was 2 in the morning. She started to call Bill when the secretary told her she had an incoming call. It was Bill. Hard to believe but true. Bill and Matt spent the next few minutes talking blues. A rehearsal was set up for the following Sunday. Matt sent a set list via e-mail to Bill and after one rehearsal Bill played his first gig with the band at the Dive Bar in Raleigh. “We got to rehearse a couple more times with Bill and liked what he was doing so we invited him to play with us at Copperhoods in High Point where we introduced him as our newest member” said Kevin.

Bill has been involved in the Piedmont Music scene in different genres over 30 years.. “I would help local song-writers record their demos. I got a chance to meet a lot of interesting people during that time and have helped some local talent get air-play and gigs”. Bill has been a DJ for WQFS 90.9 in Greensboro for the past 4 years. His show “The Whittles and Dowe Show” can be heard from 6am-8am on Fridays.
The band released their second CD , “Live at The Flipside” on March 10, 2007, celebrating with a return visit to The Flipside, the place the live CD was recorded. The band’s single from that CD, “Voodoo Child” stayed on the World-Wide blues charts on the Internet at Soundclick.com for 5 weeks, peaking at #4 in April of 2007.

In May of 2007, their drummer left