Congratulations to The Carolyn Sills Combo from Santa Cruz for winning the 2024 Ameripolitan music award for “Best Western Swing Band” at this year’s Austin ceremony. It’s quite and honor considering that the competition is against nominees from all over the world. The competition is this category included Lovesick Duo from Balogna in Italy, Sad Daddy out of Arkansas and The Cowpokes from Nashville. Spaghetti western swing, with a nod to Ennio Mariconi, composer of the famous spaghetti western sound tracks, is what the band calls it’s style.
The Bay Area’s Mitch Polzak was nominated (again) for Best Western Swing Male Vocalist and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass event was nominated for Best Festival, as was the Western Swing-Out in Tehachapi, but those awards went to others. The Ameripolitan Awards are the brainchild of Dale Watson who wanted recognition for music outside of the Nashville scene and the mall-store country mentality . As a footnote, the recently deceased Mojo Nixon had been the MC in 2022 and 2023 and was scheduled for 2024, so Ray Benson from Asleep at the Wheel filled in.
