Currently touring and recording with the Hot Club of Cowtown:
Elana James, Fiddle & Vocals/ Whit Smith, Guitar & Vocals/ Jake Erwin, Bass & Vocals
Influences
Hot Jazz and Roma fiddlers and vocalists from pre-1945ish AND Schnuckenack Reinhardt, Dorado and Tchavolo Schmitt, Bob Wills, Stuff Smith, Blossom Dearie, Stephane Grappelli, Joe Venuti, Johnny Gimble, Mildred Bailey, Wade Ray, Hugh and Karl Farr, Louis Tierney, Joe Holley, Oscar Aleman, Eck Robertson, Tommy Jackson, Lester Young, Dhrupad, Vidhur Malik
Sounds Like
Elana James
Record Label
Shock Records (Australia); Buffalo Records (Japan)
As of 2008 Elana has happily resumed playing full time with the Hot Club of Cowtown. Above is a random selection of Elana's recent recordings.
GEAR:
I play a 1962 Mittenwald violin and, when playing electric, use an L.R. Baggs pick-up into an AER amplifier. I use ball-end Dominant violin strings and always have five beaux (I mean bows!) on the road at all times -- two fiberglass and three wood -- which get rehaired about every six weeks with superfine Mongolian stallion hair.
James handles vintage songs with great assurance. "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" and "Exactly Like You" are all delivered without a hint of tiresome post-modern irony.
-Clive Davis
The Times (London)
A beautiful voice, a fantastic musician, with the heart and soul of an angel.
-Willie Nelson
Her fiddle...evokes memories of the wizardry of Stephane Grappelli and the magic of Johnny Gimble....Special, original, and a true treasure. Listen.
-Fred Foster
Producer, Founder, Monument Records
What fiddling!...and a beautiful voice.
-Laurie Anderson
Elana is one of the sexiest, most talented musicians. Her style hints of another era...taking you places you thought were unreachable by today's standards. And yet, here she is...
-Raul Malo
The Mavericks
[Elana's] throaty violin solos arrived in terse, epigrammatic phrases with a sprint, every so often, into chromatic harmony. She also sang in a breathy, un-self-conscious voice that made every double-entendre seductive.
-Jon Pareles
New York Times
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