40th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Hot Club of Cowtown has been stunning audiences worldwide for over 20 years with its trademark blend of hot jazz, western swing, American songbook standards, and music from 1930s Paris and the American West. Elana James (fiddle, vocals) grew up in a musical family, and early on spent summers wrangling and packing horses on Colorado ranches. She discovered western swing with bandmate Whit Smith (guitar, vocals), whose first memories include folk and acoustic blues music. Together, they keep dancers on their toes as the band virtuosically improvises its way through what The Independent calls “that crossroads where country meets jazz and chases the blues away.”