Hot Club of Cowtown

The Hot Club of Cowtown is an American Western swing trio that formed in 1997.

History

The band's name comes from two sources: "Hot Club" from the hot jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli's Quintette du Hot Club de France, and "Cowtown" from the western influence of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and other early Western swing combos, as well as the band's love of fiddle tunes, hoedowns, and songs of the American west.

Whit Smith (from Cape Cod, Massachusetts) and Elana James (from Prairie Village, Kansas) met through an ad in the classified music section of ''The Village Voice'' in 1994. They played together in New York City before moving to San Diego in 1997, where they spent a year playing for tips and building up their repertoire. In 1998 they moved to Austin, Texas and two years later added Jake Erwin (from Tulsa, Oklahoma) on bass.

The band split briefly in 2005, though they reunited for occasional shows in 2005–07, including the Fuji Rock Festival and a tour of Australia as Elana James & The Hot Club of Cowtown, in 2007. Whit Smith performed as Whit Smith's Hot Jazz Caravan, based in Austin, Texas. Elana toured with Bob Dylan in 2005 and began performing with her own trio later in 2005. Smith and James resumed playing together full-time in 2006 and by early 2008 the Hot Club of Cowtown had officially re-formed.

In the summer of 2020, upright bass player Jake Erwin retired from the band and was replaced by Zack Sapunor of Sacramento, California. Sapunor previously toured and recorded with Americana/Swing artist Wayne Hancock.

The band celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2022.

Recordings

The Hot Club's first album, 1998's '' Swingin' Stampede'' is a collection of standards, fiddle tunes, and classic Western swing songs, including two written by Bob Wills. Their 1999 follow-up album,
Tall Tales
'','' includes original songs by Smith and James, including ''Darling You And I Are Through'' by James, and ''Emily'' and ''When I Lost You'' by Smith, as well as more Western Swing standards by Bob Wills, Pee Wee King, and others. Later albums continued to mix classic Western Swing and hot jazz, with originals in the same style; including the studio albums,
Ghost Train
' (2002) an
''Wishful Thinking''
(2009). Their 2011 album
What Makes Bob Holler
' was a tribute to Bob Wills and includes obscure B-sides with some of Wills' most popular work, including ''Big Balls in Cowtown,'' ''Stay a Little Longer'', ''Osage Stomp'' and ''The Devil Ain't Lazy''. ''What Makes Bob Holler'' has since been re-released by th
Last Music Company
worldwide in all formats, including vinyl.

The Hot Club of Cowtown released a live DVD, ''Continental Dance Party,'' in 2012 which was filmed at the Continental Club Gallery in Austin, Texas.

In 2016, the Hot Club of Cowtown released its ninth studio album,
Midnight on the Trail
' (Gold Strike Records), a vintage mix of 12 Western swing songs and cowboy ballads "hand-collected to reflect the spirit and joy of the American West," including traditional songs as well as works by Cindy Walker, Gene Autry, Bob Wills, Johnny Mercer, and more. The band's previous release
''Rendezvous in Rhythm''
(Gold Strike Records, 2013) was a collection of hot jazz standards and gypsy instrumentals played acoustically in the style of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli (The Quintette of the Hot Club of France). "Often people at our shows, old-timers from West Texas, will come up and tell us that what they really like is those traditional, Romanian-sounding songs. This was the antidote to our Western swing CD. Our band is better known as a western swing act, and even though Western swing includes all kinds of jazzy bluesy idioms from back in the day, the western and country part of it are so prominent that it tends to overshadow the purely jazzy European side," said James.

In 2017, in recognition of the band's 20th anniversary, the Hot Club of Cowtown re-released their first set of recordings,
Western Clambake,
' a cassette which had previously been released in 1997 when the band played for tips in and around San Diego, California at farmers' markets, local cafes and coffee houses, and Balboa Park.
Crossing the Great Divide
' soon followed, an EP of songs drawn from the first two albums by The Band (Music from Big Pink and The Band) and re-arranged Hot Club of Cowtown-style

The Hot Club of Cowtown's 11th studio album,
Wild Kingdom
'' was released on September 27, 2019--a fourteen-track collection of standards and original songs by Whit Smith and Elana James about star-crossed romances
Near Mrs.
) cavemen, Mongolian stallions, vintage candy, rodeo pick up men, and the real meaning of "Last Call.
''Wild Kingdom''
was pulled during the pandemic in 2020 and re-released worldwide in 2022 on the London, UK labe
The Last Music Company
The band also released
''The Finest Hour''
" in early 2020, a collection of songs from the American pop chart at the end of WWII in 1945. ''The Finest Hour'' was recorded in front of a live audience at th
Dakota Jazz Club
in Minneapolis.

Awards & Live Performances

The Hot Club of Cowtown continues to tour year-round, primarily in the US and the UK.

Their live show has been described as "an arsenal full of technique and joy" by Jon Caramanica in th


Frank De Blase, in th
Rochester City Paper
writes that the band "swung light and tight like tumbleweeds made of velvet."
The Sunday Times
(London) describes the Hot Club of Cowtown as “The world’s most engaging Western Swing band – their shows are all about energy and joie de vivre – the devil-may-care style that combined the rigour of Jazz with the down-home sentiment of Country and earthiness of the Blues – it is as a live act that they have made their greatest impact.”

AWARDS

In 2013, the Hot Club of Cowtown was nominated for the first-ever Ameripolitan Music Awards, held in Austin, Texas in 2014, in the Western Swing Group of the Year category. The band was nominated again for th
Ameripolitan Music Awards
the following year (2015) and won Western Swing Group of the Year, as Elana James won Western Swing Female of the Year. Elana James, Whit Smith and Jake Erwin are each members of the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame, and, more recently, Elana James and Zack Sapunor were inducted into the Sacramento Western Swing Hall of Fame in Sacramento, California.

In January and February 2011, they toured with Roxy Music as the opening act on Roxy's UK leg of their ''For Your Pleasure'' tour.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Career highlights include the Women in Jazz series (part of Jazz at Lincoln Center), th
Cambridge Folk Festival
(UK), the Glastonbury Festival (UK), the Fuji Rock Festival (Japan), Byron Bay Blues & Roots Festival (AU), the National Folk Festival ( US and AU), the Stagecoach Festival, the Winnipeg Folk Festival (CA), Waiting for Waits Festival (SP), the grand opening of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, The Barns at Wolf Trap, the Rochester Jazz Festival, the Strawberry Festival, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and traveling as US State Department Musical Ambassadors to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Algeria, the Republic of Georgia, and the Sultanate of Oman. The Hot Club of Cowtown has toured with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Mavericks, Dan Hicks, Gatemouth Brown, The Avett Brothers, Bryan Ferry and others.

The band has been featured on television, appearing on several episodes of ''Larry's Country Diner'', as well as on Later With Jools Holland and the Jools Holland New Year's Eve Hootenanny (UK), $40 a Day with Rachael Ray (US), The Grand Ole Opry (US), the BBC Live From Glastonbury broadcast (UK), Good Morning Azerbaijan, th
Texas Music Cafe
','' and others. Film credits for songs include indie films ''Four Dead Batteries'' and ''In Search of a Midnight Kiss''. United States radio appearances include Mountain Stage, eTown, World Cafe, A Prairie Home Companion, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour, Sirius Satellite, XM Satellite, and many more.

Discography

*1998: '' Swingin' Stampede'' HighTone
*1999: ''Tall Tales'' HighTone
*2000: ''Dev'lish Mary'' HighTone
*2002: ''Hot Jazz'' (Japan only) Buffalo
*2002: ''Hot Western'' (Japan only) Buffalo
*2002: ''Ghost Train'' HighTone
*2003: ''Continental Stomp'' iveHighTone
*2005: ''Four Dead Batteries'' (original soundtrack) HighTone
*2008: ''The Best of The Hot Club of Cowtown'' Shout!Factory
*2009: ''Wishful Thinking'' Gold Strike
*2011: ''What Makes Bob Holler'' Proper American -- Vinyl reissued Oct 2021 by The Last Music Company (London, UK)
*2012: ''Continental Dance Party'' (DVD) Gold Strike
*2013: ''Rendezvous in Rhythm'' Gold Strike
*2016: ''Midnight on the Trail'' Gold Strike
*2017: ''Western Clambake'' (reissue of the band's first recordings from 1997) Gold Strike
*2019: ''Crossing The Great Divide'' (tribute to The Band) Gold Strike
*2019: ''Wild Kingdom'' Gold Strike -- Reissued worldwide April 2022 by The Last Music Company (London, UK)
*2020: ''The Finest Hour -- Songs That Ended WWII''

Individual media by band members

*2008: ''Chordination'' – Instructional DVD by Whit Smith
*2011: ''Chordination, Vol. 2'' – Instructional DVD by Whit Smith
*2012: ''Hell Among The Hedgehogs'' (Old Cow Records) – CD/EP (32:00) featuring the twin guitars of Whit Smith and Matt Munisteri
*2014: ''On The Nature Of Strings'' (Flying Fortress Records) – Solo CD by Whit Smith
*2016: ''Chordination, Vol. 3'' – Instructional DVD by Whit Smith

*2007: ''Elana James'' (Snarf Records) – Solo CD by Elana James
*2011: ''Elana James's Hot Fiddle: Introduction to Violin Improvisation'' – Instructional DVD by Elana James
*2015: ''Black Beauty'' (Snarf Records) – Solo CD by Elana James

References

External links

Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hot Club Of Cowtown
Western swing musical groups
Musical groups established in 1998
American jazz ensembles
American country music groups
Swing revival ensembles
American swing musical groups
Proper Records artists