Smokey Hormel

Smokey Hormel (born Greg Hormel, 1959), is a guitarist from New York City. As session guitarist he recorded with Neil Diamond, Beth Orton, K. D. Lang, Marianne Faithfull, R. L. Burnside, Johnny Cash, Justin Timberlake, The Dixie Chicks, Josh Groban, Kid Rock, Norah Jones, Rufus Wainwright and Jennifer Nettles.

Hormel was born in Los Angeles to the Hormel family of meat producers. His uncle run the Village Recorders studio. In the 1980s, he began playing with the Radio Ranch Straight Shooters swing band in Los Angeles, and with The Blasters. In the 1990s he moved to New York City. From 1996 to 1999 he toured with Beck, played in his two albums of the period, and in three later ones. At the same time he worked with Tom Waits.

In the early 2000s he led a bossa nova band with Miho Hatori, Smokey & Miho, and performed Brazilian music with Mauro Refosco's Forro in the Dark. Afterwards he founded Smokey's Secret Family, playing a version of Congolese rumba music of the 1950s. Since 2008 he leads the four piece swing band Smokey's Round-Up.

External links

• Official site
• Smokey Hormel discography at Discogs
• Smokey Hormel at AllMusic
• Smokey Hormel at the Internet Movie Database