 |
Smokey Hormel | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Gregory Hormel [1] or Smokey Hormel [2] |
| Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Americana-, Brazilian-, Caribbean-, and African-styled surf music |
| Occupation(s) | Session guitarist |
| Website | Official site |
Smokey Hormel (born circa 1959) [3] is an American guitarist known for his blues-influenced Americana style and working as a session musician with a wide array of performers.
Hormel was born and raised in Los Angeles. [2] His given name has been reported as Smokey [2] or Gregory. [1] Hormel is a great-grandson of George A. Hormel, founder of Hormel Foods Corporation. [2] As a teenager he studied with Jimmy Wyble, guitarist for Texas Playboys and Benny Goodman.
In the mid-1980s, Hormel played lead guitar with the Radio Ranch Straight Shooters and later joined the roots-rock band The Blasters, with whom he toured the US and Europe from 1988 to 1992. At the same time, he formed The Blue Shadows with Lester Butler, performing weekly in West Hollywood's King King club. Throughout the early 1990s, he toured and recorded with John Doe, the pair appearing in the movie Georgia .
In 1996, Hormel joined Beck for his Odelay world tour and played on the subsequent Beck albums Mutations , Midnight Vultures and Sea Change . Two years later, he played with Tom Waits on the Grammy award-winning Mule Variations and was featured on Waits' Get Behind The Mule tour in 1999.
In 2000, Hormel moved to New York City, where he and Miho Hatori formed Smokey & Miho. In 2003, Forro in the Dark was formed with Rob Curto and Mauro Refosco. The group recorded and performed with David Byrne, Seu Jorge, Bebel Gilberto and Steve Earle. In 2005, Hormel formed Smokey's Secret Family, which plays Brazilian-, Caribbean-, and African-styled surf music; and Smokey's Round-up, a western swing band.
In the early 2000s, Hormel was a primary player on Johnny Cash's final albums, produced by Rick Rubin, which included the Grammy Award-winning cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt".
From 2004 to 2010, Hormel was a composer and guitarist for the Nickelodeon TV cartoon series The Backyardigans . His other film score work includes Be Kind Rewind , The Cowboy and The Frenchman, The Straight Story , Star Maps , Chuck & Buck , Trees Lounge , Lonesome Jim , Old Joy , Wendy and Lucy , Night Moves , Certain Women and I'm Not There .
In 2010, Hormel recorded and toured with Norah Jones. They appeared together in the feature film Ted .
In 2012, he rejoined Beck for a tour and the recording of the 2014 Grammy Award-winning Album of the Year, Morning Phase .
Today Hormel plays clubs around New York City with Smokey's Secret Family. Smokey's Round-up plays dances every Wednesday night at Sunny's Bar in Brooklyn.
He has also recorded or performed with Adele, Lee Allen, R. L. Burnside, Jim Carroll, Rosanne Cash, Cibo Matto, Neil Diamond, Bo Diddley, John Doe, Dixie Chicks, Erasmo Carlos, Steve Earle, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Allen Ginsberg, Josh Groban, Marianne Faithfull, Joe Houston, Wanda Jackson, Mick Jagger, David Johansen, K. D. Lang, Al Kooper, Bettye Lavette, Sean Lennon, Chris Martin, The Manhattan Transfer, Patsy Montana, Jennifer Nettles, Beth Orton, Kid Rock, Timothy B Schmit, Joe Strummer, Justin Timberlake, Rufus Wainwright, Yebba and Yo La Tengo.
James Patrick Page is an English musician and producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Prolific in creating guitar riffs, Page’s style involves various alternative guitar tunings and melodic solos, coupled with aggressive, distorted guitar tones. It is also characterized by his folk and eastern-influenced acoustic work. He is notable for occasionally playing his guitar with a cello bow to create a droning sound texture to the music.
Geoffrey Arnold Beck was an English guitarist. He rose to prominence as a member of the rock band the Yardbirds, and afterwards founded and fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to an instrumental style with focus on an innovative sound, and his releases spanned genres and styles ranging from blues rock, hard rock, jazz fusion and a blend of guitar-rock and electronica.
Marc Ribot is an American guitarist and composer.
Steven Lee Lukather is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer, best known as the sole continuous founding member of the rock band Toto. His reputation as a skilled guitarist led to a steady flow of session work beginning in the 1970s that has since established him as a prolific session musician, recording guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums spanning a broad array of artists and genres. He has also contributed to albums and hit singles as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Notably, Lukather played guitar on Boz Scaggs' albums Down Two Then Left (1977) and Middle Man (1980), and was a prominent contributor to several studio albums by Michael Jackson, including Thriller (1982). Lukather has released nine solo albums, the latest of which, Bridges, was released in June 2023.
Mule Variations is the thirteenth studio album by American musician Tom Waits, released on April 16, 1999, on the ANTI- label. It was Waits' first studio album in six years, following The Black Rider (1993). The album was backed by an extensive tour in Europe and North America during the summer and autumn of 1999, which was Waits' first proper tour since 1987. Other promotional stops included a solo performance on VH1 Storytellers.
The Blasters are an American rock band formed in 1979 in Downey, California, by brothers Phil Alvin and Dave Alvin (guitar), with bass guitarist John Bazz and drummer Bill Bateman. Their self-described "American Music" is a blend of rockabilly, early rock and roll, punk rock, mountain music, and rhythm and blues and country.
Miho Hatori is a Japanese singer, songwriter, and musician. She is best known as a solo artist, co-founder of New York City band Cibo Matto, and as the first person to provide the voice of Noodle in the virtual band Gorillaz, as well as for her work with the Beastie Boys, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Smokey Hormel, John Zorn, and many more.
Jon Joseph Waronker is an American drummer and music producer. He has performed with acts including Beck, R.E.M. and Roger Waters, and is a member of the experimental rock bands Atoms for Peace and Ultraísta.
Warren Haynes is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known for his work as longtime guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a guitarist for David Allan Coe and The Dickey Betts Band. Haynes also is known for his associations with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, including touring with Phil Lesh and Friends and the Dead. In addition, Haynes founded and manages Evil Teen Records.
"Hurt" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from its second studio album, The Downward Spiral (1994), written by Trent Reznor. It was released on April 17, 1995, as a promotional single from the album. The song received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Song in 1996. In 2020, Kerrang and Billboard ranked the song number two and number three, respectively, on their lists of the greatest Nine Inch Nails songs.
Sheldon Maurice Reynolds was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a member of bands Sun, The Commodores and Earth, Wind & Fire.
David A. Immerglück is an American multi-instrumentalist who is best known as a guitarist in the alternative rock bands Counting Crows, Camper Van Beethoven and the Monks of Doom, as well as for his tenure with American singer songwriter John Hiatt. A versatile musician, Immerglück plays mandolin, pedal steel guitar, bass, slide guitar, electric sitar, keyboards, and sings.
Douglas Allen Woody was an American bass guitarist best known for his eight-year tenure in the Allman Brothers Band and as a co-founder of Gov't Mule.
The Red Devils were a Los Angeles–based blues rock band who were active from 1988 to 1994. With their no-frills approach and singer Lester Butler's convincing Chicago-style blues harp, they were a popular fixture on the Los Angeles club scene and toured the U.S. and Europe.
Washington Square Serenade is the 12th studio album by American singer-songwriter Steve Earle, released in 2007. The album features the singer's wife Allison Moorer on the track "Days Aren't Long Enough," and the Brazilian group Forro in the Dark on the track "City of Immigrants." The track "Way Down in the Hole," written by Tom Waits, was used as the opening theme song for the fifth and final season of the HBO series The Wire, on which Earle played a recurring character named Walon. The album was released on September 25, 2007, on New West Records. In February 2008 it won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.
Rick Allen is an American blues, rock and R&B Hammond organist and pianist. In the 1960s, he played organ trio gigs in Los Angeles and did session work with singers and guitarists such as Jerry McGee and Rick Vito. In the 1970s, he toured with Don Preston, and recorded with Delaney & Bonnie. Allen moved to New Orleans in the 1980s, where he played and recorded with a number of blues and cajun performers including Ernie K-Doe, King Floyd, Freddy Fender, Marcia Ball.
Charles Roscoe Beck is an American bassist with a reputation as "a solid bottom-liner". Beck has played with artists like Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, Leonard Cohen, and The Dixie Chicks. He is also a successful record producer with two Grammy Award nominations.
Forro in the Dark is a New York-based collective of Brazilian expatriates that formed in 2002. The group combines the musical style of forró, "the percussion-heavy, rhythmic dance music" of their native Brazil, with elements of rock, folk, jazz, and country.
Andrew Borger is an American drummer.
Kissingsohard is an album by the American musician John Doe, credited to the John Doe Thing. It was released in 1995. Doe promoted the album by touring with Juliana Hatfield, and then with Shane MacGowan.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
