Nothing is certain in this life, but it's a good bet Mark Wenner will still be fronting the Nighthawks if he ever decides to put down his harmonica.

There have been lean times for the Maryland-based blues band during the 37 years it has spent traveling from bar to bar, playing its brand of hard Chicago blues. There have been times when nobody was paying much attention to the music it played and times when band members themselves didn't seem terribly interested.

But Wenner never believed giving up on the Nighthawks would solve those problems.

"People have suggested over the years that maybe it was time to just be Mark Wenner and let the Nighthawks name go away," Wenner said during a telephone interview. "But I'm pretty uninclined to hang up the Nighthawks name.

"I've put most of the life into it."

Wenner, 60, said the band, which will perform Friday night at the Chameleon Club Blues Fest, went through a crisis, which turned out to be therapeutic, five years ago when two of its four members quit.

Instead of panicking, Wenner got on the phone and hired a new guitarist, Paul Bell, and a new bass player, Johnny Castle. Longtime drummer Pete Ragusa wasn't going anywhere.

The overhaul changed everything, reinvigorating the band as it approaches its 40th year in the business.

"Everybody wants to be there on-stage," Wenner said. "Everybody wants to interact. Everybody wants to be creative. Everybody's willing to put in time on the side to keep things developing. Everybody on-stage looks like they want to be there, acts like they want to be there, will look you in the eye and physically interact on-stage instead of watching the basketball game on a television at the far end of the bar, chewing gum and standing flatfooted."

As evidence of the Nighthawks' resurgence, give a listen to its latest CD, "American Landscape," one of the best studio albums the band has made during its long career.

The CD, which treads much stylistic turf, includes some terrific originals written by Castle along with some well-chosen covers, including Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me" and "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine," Tom Waits' "Down in the Hole" and Ike Turner's "Matchbox."

Wenner said the band will play about 200 shows this year and plans to leave its comfort zone on the East Coast and venture out to the Midwest as it promotes the new album.

"It's a balance between not killing each other and earning a living and getting done what we need to get done," he said. "With this new CD out, I'm kind of willing to do a lot of stuff that I might not have bothered to do — less well-playing gigs further away. The most CDs we do sell are sold right off the stage by us. If we just keep banging around the local places, after a while everybody will have it."

During his career in music, Wenner has rubbed shoulders with many of the blues greats, including Muddy Waters, Gregg Allman, John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, John Hammond and Johnny Winter, the albino guitarist who is headlining the Chameleon's blues festival. Winter is probably best known for his scorching version of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited."

"We have a very blurry photograph of him sitting in with us at the Lone Star in New York," Wenner said of Winter. "We're blessed to have him still happening."

Same goes for Wenner and the Nighthawks.

THAT'S THE TICKET

Chameleon Club Blues Fest

Headliner: Johnny Winter

21 and over. Fri. 7 p.m. $20.

Chameleon Club, 223 N. Water St.

393-7133. On the Web at
www.chameleonclub.net