Workmen restoring the garage behind her house in Austin, Texas, have sent Hot Club of Cowtown violinist/singer Elana James indoors for some peace and quiet.
"There are five guys outside with chain saws," she says last week. "Usually I'd be sitting out there, but it's too loud."
Hot Club of Cowtown
Friday, 7 p.m., Central Arkansas Library System’s Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Ave., Little Rock
Admission: $20
(501) 320-5728
James has lived in the house for two decades and is finally converting the garage into a habitable place for a studio and perhaps a spare room for guests.
"It's pretty fantastic," she says. "I've lived here for 20 years, and this structure [built in 1948] has always been in disrepair, so to see people come in and rehabilitate it is exciting, but it's loud."
Something else that has been in James' life for the past 20 years is Hot Club of Cowtown, which she formed with guitarist/singer Whit Smith to amalgamate their love for Western swing and jazz into one exuberant and wickedly tight trio, with slap-bassist Jake Erwin rounding out the group.
Hot Club performs Friday at the Central Arkansas Library System's Ron Robinson Theater, and the band is celebrating its anniversary throughout its current tour and into next year.
"We have a series of things that we're unrolling through 2017 and 2018," James says of the anniversary. "One thing we've done so far is reissue the first set of recordings we made in 1997."
The collection, Western Clambake, which features original bassist T.C. Cyran, had heretofore been available only on audiocassette.
"It's pretty cool, but it sounds really old," says James, 46. "It sounds like a vintage recording from the 1930s."
There will be a live album, recorded in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as well as a new record of original Hot Club material.
The band will get moving on those projects upon its return from a coming three-week tour through England, James says.
All of that follows a trilogy of sorts that the trio began in 2011 with What Makes Bob Holler, a gathering of Bob Wills Western swing tunes; 2013's Rendezvous in Rhythm, which included American Songbook standards and Gypsy-influenced hot jazz and Midnight on the Trail, the 2016 record dedicated to obscure cowboy ballads and more Western swing.
After that stretch, James says she's looking forward to getting back to Hot Club originals: "[In the studio] we're about to step back into the realm of stuff we've written. So we're getting back in that direction with these next recordings."
James grew up near Kansas City and has been playing violin since she was just 4 years old (she and her family also spent time exploring the Ozarks and the Buffalo National River). How does she keep her music fresh after playing for most of her life?
"I don't know where music comes from, but it's like a waterfall in the mountains," she says. "You have the good fortune to have something that comes to you, and it never gets old. It's kind of my responsibility to keep up with what I've been given."
Besides her work with Hot Club, James has recorded three solo albums, the most recent being 2015's Black Beauty. She has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion and has toured and recorded with the likes of Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and others.
Soooooo, Elena, how about some juicy Dylan or Merle stories?
"I'm going to save them for my memoirs," she says, laughing. "But I will say that I've been so lucky to play with those people. The lasting value of playing with them is being onstage and being able to channel their energy. That is the gift that I've gotten from working with them.
"To be able to experience that firsthand, it's like one candle lighting another."
Weekend on 09/28/2017