Hometown Gamblers - Takin Care of Business

Belgium's Hometown Gamblers burst onto the music scene in 1998 when brothers Guy and Yves De Caluwe decided to set up a rockabilly band. Yves and Guy were hooked to rockabilly and rock n roll music ever since they were youngsters. Their father's record collection and also the influence of their good friend Rockin' Rudy, a famous DJ in the rockabilly music scene, helped them to dig deeper into roots music. The guys recognize their roots from a wide field of good and real music - country, western swing, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock'n roll and rockabilly. Artists like Johnny Horton, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Johnny Burnette trio and many more changed their life forever. In the early years of the Hometown Gamblers, the line-up changed a few times but in the year 2002 everything fall into place when the right people were found. It soon became clear that there was no place for drums in the band. From that moment, the line-up consists of Guy De Caluwe on double bass, Jurgen Van Poppel on lead, baritone and steel guitars, Jeffrey Thielens on harmonica and Yves De Caluwe on rhythm guitar and vocals. So far the set list consisted of classic tunes only. But it soon became clear that the Hometown Gamblers had more up their sleeve. The band started to write original songs. Yves turned out to be a good songwriter and with the help of his brother Guy and Jurgen a lot of songs were written in a short time. After some months of rehearsing the original songs were included in the live set list and they were very much appreciated by the audience. In the fall of 2004 the Hometown Gamblers got to back-up the Seatsniffers and their Guitar player / Singer Walter Broes heard the songs and liked them. They asked Walter, who's also a well known producer, to help them with the production of a full CD. Soon, after some months of rehearsing and some help from Walter with the lyrics and musical arrangements, the guys went to the studio to record their first full album. The recordings were finished in April 2005 and the CD was released in early 2006 on El Toro records. The sublime CD cover was designed by Mighty Sam and El Cheapo (Design and pictures). The Hometown Gamblers continue to write new music and plan to bring out a new CD with original songs in two years. So the story isn't even close to it's end. The Hometown Gamblers are always trying to make it better and better and are always glad to see and meet people who appreciate that great variety of good music that was made in the time when music was really music.