CW & Twenty Hands High returns to Rock & Rails for their sophomore year

This week, CW & Twenty Hands High are returning to the Rock & Rails stage for their second year, bringing their country, Southern rock, outlaw, red dirt sound with them. Local musician Taylor Shae will open for them.

I talked to the band's founder and frontman, CW Wooten, just after the band finished a performance at Beasts and Brews, a taphouse and butcher shop in Colorado Springs. Our conversation started not by talking about music or his latest show, but about the food that was there.

Wooten raved about the elote and the barbeque. Apparently, he's always loved good food. "Even when I was in the military, the guys would want to go to McDonalds and I was like, let's just go and find somewhere different," he said. "Once we were sitting at a cafe in Genoa, Italy, and wanted a full meal. We were just about to leave but they asked us to stay and the owner's daughter made us a meal. It was fantastic."

After we finished talking about Wooten's culinary adventures we settled into talking about his experiences playing in Niwot last year. "I thought it was fantastic," he said. "During the show, Satir (DeMarco) asked me if I wanted to take a break. I was like 'no.' We've got 800 people here. We're not going to stop. People were having a good time. When the crowd gives it back to you you amp it up a bit more."

This Thursday will be different in a couple of ways. "Last year, we had a keyboard player who passed away since then in February," Wooten said. "We'll miss our good buddy Jimmy. This year, we just had a pedal steel guitarist. He should be in Nashville. I'm glad he's not. This will help us sound more outlaw. More red dirt."

Wooten also talked about some successes the band has had since last year. "We released our song, 'Back to Wichita' six weeks ago, it's number 14 on the CD Tex chart. That chart is cumulative for the year which makes it mean so much more." The release also has grown to approximately 350,000 downloads across multiple digital platforms.

The band's success didn't just happen. There's a lot of legwork involved. Wooten did a Texas radio tour at the beginning of May, spending time in San Antonio, Abilene, Lubbock, and visiting a lot of radio stations. He drove 2200 miles in four days.

Wooten founded the band five-and-a-half years ago after retiring from the military. He explained, "I had my pension insurance and I thought, 'Why not just do what I love?' I thought I'd give it a few years and see where I was at. If I'm not making any progress, I'll stop."

Things worked out, however, and they're gaining a following. The day I spoke to Wooten, the announcement of his nomination for the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame, hosted at Dougy G's in Thornton, came out. The band has also been nominated in two categories for the Texas Country Music Association awards, and the band is closing in on 60,000 Facebook followers

In addition, they have been nominated in four categories for the Josie Music Awards: Artist of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Music Video of the Year, and Musician of the Year for their lead guitarist, Mark Gabert. It's an award geared toward independent artists and their awards presentation is at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. "I never even set foot in there before, but I'm going to now," said Wooten.

Wooten and his band are now looking forward to a busy summer playing all over the country. They will be at the college national finals rodeo, the Greeley Stampede and will also play at the Outlaw Saloon during Cheyenne Frontier Days.

As the conversation wrapped up, I asked him if his current success was everything he had hoped for when he decided to take a chance. It took Wooten a thoughtful minute to provide his answer.

"To be honest, I'm the newbie in my band. Everyone else has been playing music for 35+ years. I had the good fortune to meet Hazel Miller, and she's been my mentor."

Then Wooten switched topics, to what his band hopes for when they step on stage. "We just play. And when we do so, we want people to lose track of time. People have junk in their lives. Trouble, whatever. If I can help them blow off some steam, everyone is happy."