The New Orleans Swamp Donkeys formed in the fall of 2012 as a traditional-jazz band playing pre-1930s standards alongside their own originals. Fronted by trumpeter and singer James Williams — repeatedly compared to Louis Armstrong — with banjo player and songwriter Sam Friend beside him, the band's 2014 lineup was documented as six young players covering trumpet, banjo, sousaphone, trombone, percussion, and clarinet.
2014 was the breakout year. The band released two studio albums at once: Swamp Donkey, a dozen pre-1930s standards, and Donkey Business, all original material — including Friend's “I Can't Stop Logging on Facebook.” They closed the first weekend of that year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, sold out two sets at the Blue Note in New York, and then watched their hot-jazz arrangement of the Game of Thrones theme, performed at B.B. King's in New York, go viral with close to a million views.
The attention carried them to Europe — JazzAscona in Switzerland, Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain, the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, with stops in France, Spain, and Monaco. The band remains an active New Orleans act with an ongoing concert profile on Bandsintown.
