Jake Hooker

americana · roots

Jake Hooker is a West Texas bandleader, bass player and vocalist who fronts the traditional country and Western swing group Jake Hooker and the Outsiders. He grew up in West Texas between his father's country records and his mother's involvement in rodeo, took up bass at seven and formed his first band at fourteen. After studying at South Plains College he turned professional at eighteen, signed with Southland Records in 1998, and moved to the Fort Worth area the same year, where he has long worked as a farrier alongside a full performing schedule. Ray Price and Johnny Bush are the touchstones for his singing and for the band's shuffle-and-swing repertoire. The Outsiders work the Texas dance hall circuit, playing for dancers rather than seated listeners, and Hooker's rodeo connection has kept the band in demand at events including the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas and PRCA rodeos around the state; he has also worked with Western entertainer Red Steagall on television projects. His awards span more than two decades: Terry Awards in 2000 and 2003, an Academy of Western Artists Rising Star award in 2002, Texas Country Music Association honors in 2019, 2020 and 2024, Country Music Association of Texas Traditional Country Artist in 2022, and induction into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame as its 2024 Star of Texas. Alongside the honky-tonk and swing material he has recorded gospel, and he frames his work around family, faith and what he calls real country music and real cowboys.

Past shows