American jazz and swing trio The Hot Club of Cowtown, are bringing their unique blend of music to Peel’s Centenary Centre.
Featuring the fiddle and vocals of Elana James (who also toured with Bob Dylan for two years), guitar and vocals of Whit Smith and the amazing double bass and vocals of Jake Erwin, the band are all masters of their instruments.
The trio will be performing on Saturday as part of a 17-date tour of the British Isles to coincide with the release of their latest album.
Midnight On The Trail, their ninth studio album, was released last Saturday.
The band’s early history started in New York in 1994 when Elana – a one-time horse wrangler in Colorado, as well as a former student of classical music at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau,France – placed an advert in the music section of the Village Voice looking to join a band.
The advert was answered by Whit – who was a regular at the prestigious Djangofest Northwest in Whidbey Island, Washington – and they initially formed a duo.
They moved to Austin, Texas, in 1998, where they were signed by American roots label HighTone Records and released their first album, Swingin’ Stampede.
The band’s line-up was solidified in 2001 with the arrival of bassist Jake.
Jake grew up hearing his parents play lots of folk music, especially acoustic blues, but as a teenager rebelled and turned sharply towards hard rock, which still informs his approach to hot jazz and Western swing.
Their releases include Rendezvous in Rhythm (2013) with its more European inspirations and a collection of Western swing standards made famous by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, What Makes Bob Holler (2010).
Along with the Hot Club’s dedicated cult following worldwide – they have toured for the US State Department as musical ambassadors to Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Republic of Georgia and the Sultanate of Oman.
Legend Bob Dylan, with whom the band toured, is a continuing inspiration both personally and professionally.
The Hot Club has opened several shows for Willie Nelson, toured with Nelson and Dylan during a summer-long stadium tour and opened seven nights of Roxy Music’s sold out For Your Pleasure UK stadium tour in 2011.
In the UK, the Hot Club of Cowtown has been featured at the Glastonbury Festival and has also been a returning guest on Later with Jools Holland, the Cambridge Folk Festival, the Radcliffe and Maconie Show and Bob Harris Country on BBC Radio 2.
They have won many awards including being winner of the 2015 Ameripolitan Awards for Western Swing Group of the Year.
Their latest album is a vintage mix of 12 Western swing songs and cowboy ballads hand-collected to reflect the spirit and joy of the American West. Utterly danceable, romantic and rustic, these songs truly represent the Cowtown of the Imagination, a source of inspiration for the band since it first began.
They have been written by the likes of Bob Wills, Johnny Mercer, Cindy Walker, Gene Autry.
A review in The Times said: ‘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.’
Meanwhile, The Guardian said they perform with ‘spirit, originality and skill that would surely have impressed Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt back in the 1930s’.
Saturday’s concert starts at 8pm. Tickets cost £20.
The online ticket allocation is sold out. Contact the Centenary Centre to see if any tickets are still available.