Elana James

Hot Club of Cowtown pursues "Wishful Thinking" (Sep 2009)

Hot Club of Cowtown is a complex band filled with surprises. Evidence: The two singers trade off lead vocals, but the band also plays a lot of instrumentals. They've been successful as a traditional guitar, violin and stand-up bass combo, but recently added a drummer to mix things up on their latest CD, "Wishful Thinking." The band, which reformed after a hiatus, is complicated not only musically, but also logistically. Founding members Elana James and Whit Smith live in different states: James in Texas and Smith in Oklahoma.  ...

For Elana James, there's life after Hot Club of Cowtown (Mar 2007)

"It's been a lot of hard work over the last year and a half, clawing back out to the place where we'd been before, and there's been an enormous amount of work with that." Thus speaks Elana James, better known as Elana Fremerman, the fiddle-playing co-founder of the hot jazz aggregation Hot Club of Cowtown, which abruptly disbanded in 2005. Since then, she has toured behind Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, created a solo debut album for her own Snarf Records label and re-christened herself Elana James.  ...