The Hot Club of Cowtown

Elana Fremerman:

"I'm from Prairie Village, Kansas and grew up playing violin and hanging around my horse, April, whenever possible. I used to play classical music and have played violin since I was five. My mom is a professional violinist and she and my stepdad played in the Kansas City Symphony and most of the pit orchestras for traveling shows that would come through town, plus the opera and various other things. My dad is really gregarious and wanted to be a stand-up comic when he was younger. I think I got more musical seriousness from my mom and a more hammish performing bug from him.

In high school I had this inexplicable need to go and play fiddle for tips down in Westport (a hip area of Kansas City) and would drag a friend along and play the four fiddle tunes I knew then over and over. I went to college in New York City where I played viola and continued to study classical music and hardly played violin at all (only sometimes in the subway on the 1/9 2/3 subway platform when I couldn't help myself), But by the time I graduated I wasn't sure I wanted to continue studying classical music. I went to India and studied a style of North Indian music (dhrupad) for a while, then worked in Kathmandu, Nepal. When I got back to the US I worked off-and-on as a horse wrangler and packer in Colorado and played in a cowboy band. In 1994 I was living in New York City and doing an internship at Harper's Magazine and met Whit because I also wanted to join some kind of western band and had placed an ad in the Village Voice. He answered the ad and that was when it dawned on me that there was this whole style of music that I hadn't really known existed, and it was this missing link. Growing up I had thought if you didn't want to play classical violin your options were bluegrass, cowboy music, Irish music, or Top-40 country. But when I heard these recordings from the 1930s and early 1940s, with all these unbelievably inspired violinists, and how they were playing far out, wild solos over this driving, locomotive rhythm, and that it was social, dance music, and so utterly American, I just freaked out and have been totally into it ever since."

Whit Smith:

"I've lived so many places, it's hard to say exactly where I'm from. I was born in Greenwich, CT and lived in New Canaan until I was nine or ten. I lived in Solvang, CA during junior high but moved to Cape Cod, MA by high school. I studied (if you want to call it that) guitar with Bill Connors in New York City for a winter, but I was a bad student. I'd make a tape of myself playing scales for half an hour then I'd just play the tape while I read comic books or took a nap. This way everyone downstairs thought I was really working hard. It's funny now but I'd tan my own hide if I'd caught myself doing that today!

I convinced some people I had real means of becoming a rock star in Japan during the 1980s. They sent me over armed with a list of coveted phone numbers and connections. I would make appointments with record company people based on enthusiastic goals and credentials veiled in a slight language barrier. But by the time lunch was served they usually had figured out that I was just a thoughtless kid with a single copy of his garage rock band cassette who somehow ended up lost on the other side of the world. It was great fun while it lasted.

I moved around a lot with no idea of what I wanted to do, play, or be. Several years of this found me working in Tower Records in New York City. That's where I heard my first Bob Wills records, also Jimmy Bryant, Hank Williams, Eddie Lang, Johnny Gimble, Bix Biederbecke, and Chet Atkins.

This music was all so different and exciting I wanted to play it all! At first it was the hot guitar breaks and early-style steel and pedal steel that roped me in, but over the next several years I began to listen to the singers and other soloists -- violin, trumpet, etc.--with interest. By 1996 I had decided to concentrate on western swing and the music that influenced its great soloists.

I've been lucky to meet a pantheon of fascinating, talented characters and friends who have all helped boost me along with their teaching and the opportunities they've given me. I played with Tom Clark's "Born in a Barn" band for years in New York City -- weekly gigs where he would egg me on to play faster and crazier. Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith invited me to play lead on a song for her "Gone Again" record. Guitarist/teacher Richard Lieberson in New York City gave me much insight on traditional and authentic playing styles and was my compass for finding rare and seminal recordings. Members of the original Western Caravan have made me feel legitimate, as have Cliff Bruner and Johnny Gimble through their inspiration and encouragement. Even now, living in Texas and traveling the around the country consistently as we do lends an abstract unity with the players of 70 years ago, and I hope that translates into the Hot Club of Cowtown."

Jake Erwin:

"I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the location of Cains Ballroom and the home of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. As a child I would often hear my grandparents talk about the Wills brothers and the bands that had been based in Tulsa. Occasionally my parents would sing little bits of Bob Wills' songs, and I don't know if they knew where those lyrics came from. In a way Bob Wills and the legacy of Western Swing was everywhere, but as a kid I didn't realize it.

Growing up I was captivated by the sounds of authentic blues music, but I wouldn't come to appreciate traditional county, western swing, or jazz until later. After high school, I got really into early rock 'n' roll, R&B, and rockabilly music, and it was about this time that I started playing the bass. By then I had moved to Norman, Oklahoma, and bands that had upright bass would occasionally come through town. I would ask these bass players about their sound and how they played, and I listened to and practiced with records for hours to teach myself. I really had no one else to learn from at the time, but I stayed with it. As I listened to string bass music I dug deeper into its history and became interested in country, western swing, jump blues, and early jazz.

Eventually I was approached by a band about playing, and I moved to Dallas, Texas. Soon after, I met the Hot Club through mutual friends and musicians. I guess I've been acquainted with Whit and Elana for about three years now, and I'm glad to be playing with them."