Hot Club Of Cowtown - Wild Kingdom

Styles: Retro Swing 
Year: 2019
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 56:54
Size: 134,3 MB
Art: Front

(4:08)  1. My Candy
(4:46)  2. Last Call
(3:29)  3. Caveman
(4:41)  4. Near Mrs.
(3:13)  5. Three Little Words
(4:19)  6. Billy the Kid
(3:20)  7. Tall Tall Ship
(3:47)  8. Rodeo Blues
(4:23)  9. Ways of Escape
(2:50) 10. Loch Lomond
(4:00) 11. High Upon the Mountain
(4:14) 12. Easy Money
(5:05) 13. Before the Time of Men
(4:32) 14. How High the Moon

Rolling into decade three, Hot Club of Cowtown hasn't released a batch of original material in 10 years. Instead, the local trio revitalized standards with their blend of modernized hot jazz and Western swing. Now, 11th LP Wild Kingdom resets the marker. Elana James cuts coy out of the gate on the frolicsome "My Candy," then blows smoky as her fiddle gently weeps on "Last Call." Vibes kick carefree and playful from Whit Smith's "Caveman" to the snappy "Near Mrs" and "Three Little Words." As such, moody outlaw ballad "Billy the Kid" stands out, especially against lackluster gospel clipper "Tall Tall Ship" and the odd swoon of "Rodeo Blues." Although the new material lacks substantial depth, the playing remains immaculate and enticing, and the trio's take on traditional "Loch Lomond" and "High Upon the Mountain" ring sharp and unique.
https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2019-09-27/hot-club-of-cowtown-wild-kingdom/

Wild Kingdom

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The Hot Club Of Cowtown - Rendezvous In Rhythm

Styles: Retro Swing
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 49:23
Size: 113,4 MB
Art: Front

(3:55)  1. Dark Eyes / "Ochi Chornye"
(2:36)  2. I'm In The Mood For Love
(2:59)  3. Crazy Rhythm
(2:59)  4. Avalon
(4:00)  5. If I Had You
(3:48)  6. The Continental
(3:50)  7. Minor Swing
(3:59)  8. Melancholy Baby
(3:56)  9. I'm Confessin'
(3:50) 10. Sweet Sue, Just You
(3:52) 11. Slow Boat To China
(2:42) 12. Sunshine Of Your Smile
(3:28) 13. Back In Your Own Backyard
(3:22) 14. Douce Ambiance

Hot Club of Cowtown patented their style early in their career, and if they haven't found a lot of variation within their blend of hot dance music and western swing, they have nevertheless found a lot of depth within this unique fusion. Rendezvous in Rhythm, the group's 2013 album and eighth overall, is the flipside of 2010's Bob Wills salute What Makes Bob Holler, focusing entirely on jazz standards often heard in the south of France. In some ways, this underplays the "cowtown" element of the Hot Club, but there's a looseness in the rhythms that is ever so slightly western, plus, by this point, the trio is so fluid in blurring the boundaries between swing and western swing, it doesn't much matter that this album doesn’t have much in the way of country. 

Every one of the three members fiddler Elana James, guitarist Whit Smith, bassist Jake Erwin get space to spill out lyrical solos and they truly seem to cherish playing these familiar melodies, savoring their lyrical turns as well as the group's familiar but lively interplay. Similarly, listeners will find this comfortable but not complacent, as the trio cooks with some serious heat on these beloved tunes. And don't say the Hot Club's version of "Slow Boat to China" cashes in on the song's appearance in Paul Thomas Anderson's cryptic 2012 film The Master this album was recorded in July of 2012, long before anybody would have known Philip Seymour Hoffman bid farewell to Joaquin Phoenix with the tune at the movie's conclusion. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine  http://www.allmusic.com/album/rendezvous-in-rhythm-mw0002430771

Rendezvous In Rhythm

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Hot Club of Cowtown - Swingin' Stampede

Styles: Swing
Year: 1998
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 38:33
Size: 100,8 MB
Art: Front

(2:54) 1. I Had Someone Else
(3:17) 2. You Can't Break My Heart
(1:42) 3. Red Bird
(3:02) 4. Chinatown, My Chinatown
(3:24) 5. Just Friends
(3:06) 6. Ida Red
(3:06) 7. Silver Dew On the Blue Grass Tonight
(2:12) 8. Somebody Loves Me
(3:02) 9. My Confession
(2:03) 10. Snowflake Reel
(2:55) 11. End of the Line
(2:55) 12. T and J Waltz
(2:34) 13. Sweet Jenny Lee (2:15) 14. Mission To Moscow

On this, their debut, the Hot Club of Cowtown jump out of the gate like a fired-up, pared down version of the Texas Playboys. A trio, their playing is light and assured, full of grins. What guitarist Whit Smith and fiddler Elana Fremerman lack in vocal prowess they make up for with honest chops and spirit. Swingin' Stampede captures the ambience of old-timey swing nearly to perfection. By Jim Smith
https://www.allmusic.com/album/swingin-stampede-mw0000042562

Personnel: Whit Smith - Vocals, Guitar, Producer; Elana Fremerman - Vocals, Fiddle, Producer, Billy Horton - Backup Vocals, Upright Bass, Producer; Johnny Gimble - Fiddle (Tracks 1, 4, 8, 14); T Jarrod Bonta - Piano (Tracks 8, 10); Jeremy Wakefield - Steel Guitar (Tracks 8, 10); Mike Maddux - Accordion (Track 7).

Swingin' Stampede

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Hot Club Of Cowtown - Midnight On The Trail

Styles: Retro Swing 
Year: 2016
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 35:30
Size: 81,9 MB
Art: Front

(3:02)  1. Take Me Back To Tulsa
(3:10)  2. Call Of The Canyon
(2:52)  3. I've Got The Wonder Where She's Gone And When She's Comin' Back Again Blues
(2:54)  4. Next To The Soil
(2:40)  5. I'm An Old Cowhand (From The Rio Grande)
(3:12)  6. Cotton Eyed Joe
(3:36)  7. Oh, Mona
(2:40)  8. An Old Watermill By A Waterfall
(3:14)  9. Right Or Wrong
(2:37) 10. There's An Empty Cot In The Bunkhouse Tonight
(2:27) 11. Blue Bonnet Lane
(3:00) 12. Silver On The Sage

Western swing revivalists Hot Club of Cowtown formed in San Diego, CA in 1996; originally a duo pairing singer/violinist Elana Fremerman and singer/guitarist Whit Smith, a subsequent move to Austin, TX made room for the addition of bassist Billy Horton. Signing to Hightone, the trio issued its debut album, Swingin' Stampede!, in the fall of 1998; the follow-up, Tall Tales, appeared a year later. New bassist Matt Weiner joined Smith and Fremerman for 2000's Dev'lish Mary. Ghost Train came two years later in 2002, and it showed the group focusing more on original material and cutting back on the amount of covers. Continental Stomp followed in 2003, with Wishful Thinking arriving in 2009, and in 2011, the Hot Club finally surrendered to the obvious and released a tribute to Bob Wills, What Makes Bob Holler (the album was actually released in November of 2010 in the U.K.). ~ Jason Ankeny & Steve Leggett, Rovi https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/midnight-on-the-trail/1082467847

Midnight On The Trail

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The Hot Club Of Cowtown - The Best Of The Hot Club Of Cowtown

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 62:13
Size: 142.4 MB
Styles: Retro Swing
Year: 2008
Art: Front

[3:04] 1. Ida Red
[3:21] 2. I Can't Believe You're In Love With Me
[3:17] 3. Forget Me Nots
[4:21] 4. It Stops With Me
[3:12] 5. Chip Away The Stone
[4:16] 6. Star Dust
[2:50] 7. Secret Of Mine
[3:37] 8. Deed I Do
[3:04] 9. Sleep
[1:15] 10. Way Down Yonder In The Cornfield
[3:28] 11. Always And Always
[2:57] 12. Fuli Tschai ( Bad Girl )
[2:19] 13. I'd Understand Why
[2:15] 14. Cherokee Shuffle
[2:52] 15. I Had Someone Else
[2:40] 16. Emily
[3:21] 17. Tchavolo Swing
[2:35] 18. Exactly Like You
[3:25] 19. When I Lost You
[3:55] 20. Orange Blossom Special

Fiddler Elana James (née Fremerman) and guitar whiz Whit Smith are the formidable front line of the Hot Club of Cowtown, who have been mixing Western Swing and 1920s hot jazz since the mid-1990s. This collection features some of the finest moments from the band's first decade or so, as Smith's Jimmy Bryant-meets-Django Reinhardt guitar and Fremerman's Stephane Grappelli-jams-with-Bob Wills fiddle dig into both original tunes and old country and jazz gems with equal aplomb. ~Jim Allen

The Best Of The Hot Club Of Cowtown

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Hot Club Of Cowtown - Rare And Unreleased

Styles: Retro Swing
Year: 2010
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 36:42
Size: 84,5 MB
Art: Front

(2:36)  1. Dinah
(3:13)  2. Besame Mucho
(3:01)  3. All I Want is You
(3:35)  4. Rosetta
(2:11)  5. Bitter Creek Breakdown
(2:37)  6. Paper Moon
(2:54)  7. Ragtime Annie
(2:41)  8. You're Getting To Be a Habit With Me
(2:53)  9. Cotton Eyed Joe
(2:51) 10. Love is the Drug
(5:17) 11. Avalon
(2:48) 12. Dance Away

Western swing revivalists Hot Club of Cowtown formed in San Diego, CA in 1996; originally a duo pairing singer/violinist Elana Fremerman and singer/guitarist Whit Smith, a subsequent move to Austin, TX made room for the addition of bassist Billy Horton. Signing to Hightone, the trio issued its debut album, Swingin' Stampede!, in the fall of 1998; the follow-up, Tall Tales, appeared a year later. New bassist Matt Weiner joined Smith and Fremerman for 2000's Dev'lish Mary. Ghost Train came two years later in 2002, and it showed the group focusing more on original material and cutting back on the amount of covers. Continental Stomp followed in 2003, with Wishful Thinking arriving in 2009, and in 2011, the Hot Club finally surrendered to the obvious and released a tribute to Bob Wills, What Makes Bob Holler (the album was actually released in November of 2010 in the U.K.). ~ Jason Ankeny & Steve Leggett, Rovi  https://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/hot-club-of-cowtown/id39261566#fullText

Rare And Unreleased

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Hot Club of Cowtown - Ghost Train

Styles:  Gypsy Jazz
Year: 2002
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 42:41
Size: 98,4 MB
Art: Front

(3:07)  1. Sleep
(3:20)  2. Forget-Me-Nots
(3:10)  3. Home
(4:24)  4. It Stops with Me
(2:54)  5. Secret of Mine
(5:55)  6. Paradise with You
(3:00)  7. Fuli Tschai (Bad Girl)
(3:24)  8. You Took Advantage of Me
(4:18)  9. Before You
(2:20) 10. Cherokee Shuffle
(3:17) 11. Chip Away the Stone
(3:27) 12. Pray for the Lights to Go Out

Smoky Parisian bistros and steamy eight-to-the-bar rhythms, with an occasional two-step toward Texas roadhouse swing, continue to inspire Austin's archival threesome on Ghost Train. The band covers a few old tunes, but the best performances crop up on their own songs and particularly the ones fashioned with Art Deco affectation. These dominate the first part of the album, most persuasively on "Sleep," deftly written and performed in fairly authentic gypsy style, and "Home," which features a disarming, unaffected vocal by Elana Fremerman over a sly and slippery melody line. Hot Club of Cowtown's relatively routine performance of "You Took Advantage of Me" leads to wilder Western territory; here, aside from Fremerman's searing fiddle throughout "Cherokee Shuffle," their reversion to rawboned cowboy rusticity leaves an anti-climactic aftertaste. Paradoxically, these Texans feel more at home when their minds and their music are thousands of miles away. ~ Robert L.Doerschuk   http://www.allmusic.com/album/ghost-train-mw0000228137

The Hot Club Of Cowtown: Whit Smith (vocals, guitar); Elana Fremerman (vocals, violin); Jake Erwin (vocals, upright bass). Additional personnel: Joe Kerr (piano).

Ghost Train

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The Hot Club Of Cowtown - What Makes Bob Holler

Styles: Gypsy Jazz
Year: 2011
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:07
Size: 94,2 MB
Art: Front

(2:44)  1. She's Killing Me
(2:56)  2. It's All Your Fault
(2:29)  3. Time Changes Everything
(3:43)  4. Maiden's Prayer (Album)
(3:14)  5. Oklahoma Hills
(2:33)  6. Big Ball In Cowtown (Album)
(3:53)  7. Keeper Of My Heart
(1:53)  8. Smith's Reel
(2:35)  9. The Devil Ain't Lazy
(3:05) 10. Along the Navajo Trail
(3:32) 11. Faded Love
(2:33) 12. What's the Matter With The Mill
(2:47) 13. Osage Stomp
(3:04) 14. Stay A Little Longer

It's hard to imagine why it's taken the Hot Club of Cowtown so long to record a tribute album to Bob Wills. Their Django-meets-Wills style makes the idea a natural, and when they've covered Wills in the past  either tunes he wrote or tunes associated with the Texas Playboys  they've always brought a modern sensibility to the tunes that makes them sound brand new. As a trio, they have to be resourceful to get the kind of full sound Wills got with his ensemble, but they're up to the task. When this album was released in the U.K. in November of 2010, it jumped into the Top Ten and stayed there for weeks. "Big Balls in Cowtown" is a good example of the trio's method. Elana James lays out three impressive fiddle solos and Whit Smith's nimble guitar captures the essence of Eldon Shamblin's Django-esque lines, but finds his own way of making the strings sing. The band rewrites the lyrics using verses from other cowboy tunes, and a few of their own which are in keeping with their suggestive renaming of the song. Smith and James duet on "Time Changes Everything" then Smith drops a solo that brings to mind the electric mandolin work of Tiny Moore. Smith's guitar solo takes "Oklahoma Hills" to Paris, then drops a quote from "Dixie" into his run. James is just as inventive and slips a bit of "The Hawaiian War Chant" into her solo. Bass man Jake Erwin shines on "Stay a Little Longer," his double-time slap bass solo closes the set on a high note. ~ J.Poet  http://www.allmusic.com/album/what-makes-bob-holler-mw0002059420

What Makes Bob Holler

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The Hot Club Of Cowtown - Tall Tales

Styles: Western Swing Revival
Year: 1999
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 41:18
Size: 96,7 MB
Art: Front

(2:11)  1. Draggin' The Bow
(2:43)  2. Emily
(2:44)  3. Darling You & I Are Through
(2:29)  4. I Can't Tame Wild Women
(3:27)  5. When I Lost You
(2:52)  6. You Can't Take It With You
(2:22)  7. Wildcat
(3:30)  8. Always & Always
(2:38)  9. I Laugh When I Think How I Cried Over You
(1:59) 10. Joe Bob Rag
(3:25) 11. There'll Be Some Changes Made
(2:55) 12. Red Hot Mama
(2:23) 13. Bonaparte's Retreat
(3:03) 14. Polkadots & Moonbeams
(2:31) 15. Sally Goodin'

Kicking in with the instrumental bluegrass fiddle number "Draggin' the Bow," things get hotter when the Hot Club of Cowtown add a heap of period-style originals into their Western swing mix. There's the Bourbon Street sound of "Emily" and "Darling You and I Are Through," and then there are the standards like "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" and "Always and Always." Old-timey country ("I Laugh When I Think How I Cried Over You" and "Red Hot Mama") is yet another style in the Hot Club's bag of successful tricks, which are authentic yet somehow absolutely fresh -- and something to aspire to for the pack of neo-roots bands. ~ Denise Sullivan http://www.allmusic.com/album/tall-tales-mw0000244152

Tall Tales

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