Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76111 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-05
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
While this trio's earlier efforts at minimalist Western swing tended to be tepid and tentative at times, plagued by the most obvious song choices, nearly all those drawbacks have vanished for this third release. Along with more inventive arrangements, Whit Smith's guitar echoes the rhythm genius of former Texas Playboy Eldon Shamblin and jazzman George Barnes's vinegary tone. More remarkable is Elana Fremerman's dramatically improved fiddling. While it's no small achievement to capture the unrelenting swing of former Playboy fiddlers Jesse Ashlock and Louis Tierney, she does that consistently. Assisted in spots by guest cornetist Peter Ecklund and ex-Bob Wills steel guitarist Bobby Koefer, the Hot Club include in their repertoire here a warm version of Eddy Arnold's 1948 "Just a Little Lovin'" and Wills's now-forgotten 1945 hit "You Don't Care What Happens to Me." Further ratifying their drastic progress are smart instrumental renditions of "Tchavolo Swing," Barnes's "Way Down Yonder in the Cornfield," and the Joe Venuti-Eddie Lang jazz classic "The Wild Dog." Despite the occasional bland vocal, their newfound maturity and taste is undeniable. --Rich Kienzle

Customer Reviews

"Dev'lish Mary" is worth the purchase
I saw this band about a month ago for the first time in Atlanta, when they opened for the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and they were amazing!! (I was even lucky enought to meet them, and they signed my cd!) Their set was full of energy and had the audience jumping with the great mix of hot jazz and country and western swing. Elana's fiddle playing is fast and lively, and Whit's twangin' guitar is the perfect compliment. This CD, their latest, does an excellent job of capturing the essence of the live show. Even if you're not a fan of this type of music, you should find your toes tappin' to the likes of 'Dev'lish Mary' and 'Tchavolo Swing.' The band also has a few originals on the cd and they're good as well. All in all, an excellent buy from a great up-and-coming band, and well-worth the money!

Hot jazz and western swing - excellent CD
Hot Club of Cowtown is an amazing band. 3 pieces - swinging fiddle, hot guitar, and rock-steady upright bass. Part Django and part Western Swing, Hot Club of Cowtown brings it all home with arrangements including "Dev'lish Mary", "When the Bloom is on the Sage", and the classic "Stardust". The band is joined by first rate sidemen. The trumpet (used on a few songs) provides a great traditional jazz feel. If you ever get the chance to see Hot Club of Cowtown live, go to their gig by all means. The fiddle/guitar interplay on several of the songs is very nice as are many of the guitar and fiddle solos. This is music that is rarely heard on the radio, so do yourself a favor and buy this CD. Play it in your car and you'll be rollin' down the wide open road with your foot a-tappin'. Perfect for that big Route 66 roadtrip that you've been thinking about.

You shouldn't live without this CD, I couldn't
After hearing the wonderful version of Sally Goodin here, that almost measures up to the version Bob Wills put on his Tiffany Transcriptions, there was no way I could live without this CD.

The Hot Club of Cow Town is a great band. Particularly on the initial records, we are seeing straight up Bob Wills music. The sound and most of the selections come from Bob Willis's great Tiffany Transcriptions of the mid 1940s. The Tiffany transcriptions were records made to be played on radio stations (back when radio stations usually did not play regular retail sold records). They were hotter, looser, and with a fuller repertoire than the recordings they were making for Columbia during these years.

The Hot Club picks up this music so well, and in such a lively spirit without being directly imitative that on some selections here I expect to hear Bob Wills, Joe Holley, or Tommy Duncan singing.

Their musical achievement is to do this with a trio. They all were veterans of large real sized Western Swing aggregations in NYC and California and Texas. They were true to life Western Swing bands, but there aren't a lot of venues that are going to pay enough money for a 7, 8. or 9 piece bands to support its members, a factor that helped Rock and Roll get rid of lots of Western Swing, Big Band swing, and R & B groups in the 1950s, a trio or foursome is just cheaper to hire than a mini orchestra.

Being an inspiring wannabe baby steps fiddler, I really in love with Elena's work on all the albums. She takes a lot of her lead from the great Joe Holley's solos and obligatos with Wills in the 40s and when he rejoined the Playboys in the early 1960s. However, Elena gets a bigger richer more musically fluent sound. She stays hot, but puts a lot of bow into her fiddling and is the apparent star of this band.

However, the real greatness here is in the rhythm section. How do they do it? Just a guitarist and bassist. You'd swear there was the usual lineup in Western Swing with a rhythm guitarist playing behind the guitar leads, a drummer, and maybe a rhythm banjo player too and maybe people in a horn or fiddle section playing rhythm riffs when they aren't playing lead. Yet, it is just a bassist and a guitar player. Their rhythm is not merely good as what Wills had during his Tiffany recordings, it is much better. This almost reaches the quality of rhythm reached on the best Western Swing recording in history, the combined work of Eldon Shamblin, Smokey Dacus, and Tommy Allsup on "For the Last Time." That's saying something.

The guest appearance of cornetist Peter Ecklund and late 1940s, early 1950s Bob Wills steel guitarist Bobby Koefert on some cuts here is wonderous.

It is simple about which Hot Club CDs to get. Buy them all! Maybe you might even get one or two extra!
Buy, em, hear em send em money