media | tour dates | full bio and quotes
The story begins with a classic musical travel adventure: an ad in the music section of New York City's Village Voice. In the mid-'90s Elana James was looking to join a "gigging band" when Whit Smith answered her ad. Though he had no shows on the books, Whit somehow convinced Elana to come down to his East Village apartment and rock out for an evening just to see what would happen. When she arrived, he opened the door in big furry slippers and the rest is history.
More than a decade later, the Hot Club of Cowtown has grown to be the most globe-trotting, hard-swinging Western Swing trio on the planet. From early days busking for tips in San Diego's Balboa Park, the band has grown and developed into a formidable international sensation. The Hot Club's ever-growing presence on the international festival scene has grown with its relentless touring over the years alongside the release of five critically acclaimed CDs on American Roots label HighTone Records. In August 2008 the Hot Club's sixth CD, "The Best of the Hot Club of Cowtown," a hand-picked, band-picked, twenty-song retrospective, was released by Shout!Factory.
After a two-year hiatus during 2005-2007 the band went its separate ways, reuniting in 2008 with a packed tour schedule and a new studio CD of original material slated for release in early 2009.
In the meantime, some things haven't changed. The band--Elana James on violin and vocals, Whit Smith on guitar and vocals, and Jake Erwin on bass and vocals--still swings harder than ever as it continues to develop it's unique, ever-evolving sound. This journey, which began with the roots of the Hot Jazz era, Americana music, vintage pop and folk music, continues to unfold into the new sound of the group's original songs.
In the United States, the Hot Club of Cowtown has been featured on All Things Considered, The Grand Ol' Opry, $40 Dollars a Day with Rachel Ray, Mountain Stage, A Prairie Home Companion, and numerous other radio and television programs. In the UK they have appeared extensively on BBC Radio with Bob Harris and Andy Kershaw, and on BBC TV's "Later" with Jools Holland, the "Live From Glastonbury Festival" broadcast, as well as throughout the UK at festivals, theatres, and clubs. Among the youngest members ever to be inducted into the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame, in 2006 they also toured as musical ambassadors for the US State Department and were honored to be the first American band ever to tour in Azerbaijan. These days, tours with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, the Mavericks and others keep the Hot Club of Cowtown busy dazzling new audiences both nationally and internationally throughout much of the year.
"...spirit, originality, and skill that would surely have impressed Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt back in the 1930s."
-The Guardian (UK)
"Without a trace of smirky retro irony....a refreshingly sweet-natured, accomplished, old-school treat."
-The Onion
"The young band distinguishes itself by its technical musicianship and vast acreage of diverse styles alone, but it seals the deal on stage, subtly and methodically casting aside the audience's daily worries and levitating the room into a dreamy salon of carefree abandon. Even the heartbreak songs are served sunny-side up."
-Derek Raymaker, Toronto Globe & Mail
"I doubt that many rock bands expend more energy in their playing, but what I admire most here is the unified point of view: a nostalgic love of western swing, big-band crooning, ragtime, even jazz improvisation."
-Marc Mickelson, Soundstage.com
"Smith's fretwork conjures up Reinhardt's energetic stint with Duke Ellington, while [James] exudes pure countrified fiddle goodness."
-David Lynch, Austin Chronicle
"Working in such tradition, the Hot Club of Cowtown can burn, playing fast and furious driving rhythms at break-neck pace, and the wild abandon of Whit's fleet-fingered solos improvised over dangerous changes can leave a listener slack-jawed and winded."
-Baker Rorick, Guitar Magazine
"Their sly mix of hot licks and cool vocals remains equally driven by the twang of Texas roadhouses as the gypsy string jazz of Reinhardt and Grappelli."
Eli Messenger, Country Standard Times
"...Infusing classic pop and jazz tunes with plenty of string-band verve ...and unadulterated nostalgia."
-Mike Joyce, Washington Post
"[The Hot Club of Cowtown] stand front and center in a new generation of young pickers and grinners who carry on their shoulders musical traditions that stretch back as far as the 1920s and as late as the '40s ñ and render those arbitrary bookends meaningless with wit, charm and energy." -Henry Cabot, Arizona New Times
"No pyrotechnics. No dancers or costume changes or elaborate sets. The Hot Club relies on no modern stagecraft, just themselves. That's more than enough."
-Bill Reed, The Colorado Springs Gazette
"Perhaps the first thing one notices when listening to the Hot Club of Cowtown is its lack of irony, self-consciousness and forced hipness in embracing a style of music that so easily lends itself to such things...Stylistically, the band steps out from the shadow of its influences to become more than a faithful retro band that likes to raise its tempo every now and then. It's writing more of its own songs and varying its delivery... conscious always that above all else, the music is for dancing and an old-fashioned good time."
-Neil Strauss, New York Times
"If rosin were flammable, violinist Elana [James] would be charged with arson."
-ink19.com
"This Austin-based western swing/jazz trio--violin, guitar and upright bass --will bring even the tamest audience to its feet. Plus, instrument aficionados will drool over the 1925 Gibson acoustic, 1937 Gibson amp and all the other classic gear that helps to keep Cowtown hot and hoppin'." -Chicago Tribune
"While its repertoire and style draw from classic western swing and hot violin/guitar jazz of the Parisian 1930s and '40s, it's one of the most original groups on the Americana circuit, deserving of attention both live and on record."
-Craig Havighurst, Nashville Tennessean
"One of the finest performances by a visiting American country act I've witnessed for a very long time... they pretty much lifted the roof [off of the Black Box in Belfast] a couple of months back...a pretty much perfect country trio at the very top of their game."
-Ralph McLean, The Belfast Telegraph, 2008
"Unfussy and unpretentious, their blend of down-home melodies and exuberant improvisation harks back to a lost era of so-called western swing. When they plunge into Orange Blossom Special your thoughts turn not so much to runaway trains as to a B-52 tearing up a runway."
-Clive Davis, The Times (London), 2008
"Cynics could say that they play hick-jumping with jazz sophistication, or jazz sweetness with hoedown grit. Either way, they scoop off the best parts of both styles, and are a supremely entertaining combo."
-Martin Longley, Coventry Telegraph (UK), 2008