Marcus Knight had the audience in the palm of his hand.

It was North America Country Music Association Country Music Week in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., on March 10. Knight and his band were squaring off against an international field of country music artists for the association’s honor of Best Traditional Country Band.

Knight sang, “Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On,” and there was little doubt who the winner would be.

“The place just erupted,” said Joyce Boudreau, recalling the evening in Pigeon Forge’s Country Tonite Theatre.

“People from all the different states were clapping. It was just overwhelming.”

Joyce and Bob Boudreau recently returned from Country Music Week in Pigeon Forge, where Bob Boudreau performed under his stage name, Marcus Knight and the Black Brook Band.

The band took home first prize in the North America Country Music Association’s competition for Best Traditional Country Band. The award joins a stable of other honors the Goffstown band has earned over the past year.

The group also won the New Hampshire Country Music Association award for best traditional country band in the spring of 2006, and placed first for Traditional Country Band of the Year in the Northeast Invitational Country Showdown last October in Buxton, Maine.

It’s been a whirlwind year for the band, reflecting the talent and dedication those close to the group have observed all along.

Named after the local road the Boudreau family has called home since the group’s formation in 2000, the Black Brook Band offers a traditional country sound of keyboards, lead and rhythm guitar, bass and drums.

Subject matter covers traditional topics of friendship, love, heartbreak, truck driving and the Old 97 train that gives the group’s self-produced eight-song CD its name.

The band gives shape to Bob Boudreau’s lifelong dream of singing in a country band. It’s a dream Joyce Boudreau said she avidly supports.

“I’ve always supported (Bob) in his music, and I’m always telling him, ‘Go after your dream!’” she said.

A Goffstown native, Boudreau recruited several other longtime residents for the band.

Local members include Bob and *** Vaillancourt on rhythm guitar and bass guitar, respectively, while Paul “Puppet” Duperron of Manchester plays drums, Shorty Champaign of Epsom plays lead guitar and Bob Boudreau’s brother Bill offers backing vocals under the stage name Billy Joe Knight.

Bob Boudreau said he adopted the name Marcus Knight because he “wanted to use a universal name.”

His first name, Marcus, harkens back to an Italian name from the days of the Roman Empire, while surname Knight reflects the ancestry of knighthood within Boudreau’s own family.

Vaillancourt’s wife, Sandra, serves as the band’s manager, and is now arranging to have a banner honoring the band placed near the center of town.

“It’s phenomenal how well these guys have done over the past year. And, like any band, they need encouragement,” said Sandra Vaillancourt, who is also hoping to schedule a show for the group at Hampton Beach and other local appearances.

Bob Boudreau said he is encouraged that the Black Brook Band’s CD is now in more than 100 jukeboxes around the country, and word of their victory recognition in Tennessee has been broadcast on several local country music stations.

Joyce Boudreau, too, said she’s excited for the band’s success. “I’ve been on cloud nine since we got back from Tennessee. It’s like a dream coming true,” she said.