BROOKLYN

As Smokey Hormel pulls his guitar out of its case at Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook, an audience member’s voice rings out.

“I live a block away and I’m here every week. You’re a gift from the Lord,” the voice says.

Hormel, the bandleader for the weekly Western swing night looks up. 

“This place is the gift,” Hormel says.

This is a typical session of Smokey’s Round-Up, hosted by Hormel, a singer/guitar player, and his band: drummer Peter Grant, bassist David Hofstra, and fiddler Charlie Burnham.

Tonight’s set goes from a New York City blues to a bouncing “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” to decades-old Tom Waits classics. Audience members stand to dance in pairs and groups, sometimes filling the small dance floor, sometimes settling back into seats. The audience paces itself, as the band plays through song peppered with story.

The show comes as the Round-Up approaches its 20-year anniversary. Since September 2006, Smokey and his band have been building a song catalog and a community as the bar around them has established itself as an unlikely city-wide icon: Sunny’s Bar – a cash-only bar 1.5 miles from the nearest subway station – looks across the water to Manhattan, with some calling it “a bar at the edge of the world.”

Hormel had been working with Johnny Cash around the same time he started the band.  Cash was going blind, Hormel recalled.

“So my job was to find songs he already knew – songs from his childhood.  It was all I could think of – ‘this would be a great song for Mr. Cash.’ When he died, I didn’t want to stop. I was hooked on this search for songs,” says Hormel.  “I never sought out to be a singer. I just wanted to find new songs. Now, 20 years later, we have almost 400 songs on the master list.”

Back now in 2026, the audience engages in the hubbub of comfortable conversation between sets. Aidan McCormack, a recent University of Vermont graduate, has been coming to the Round-Up every week since he moved to New York City a year ago. This puts him in good company among the intergenerational crowd, he says.

“Basically everyone here has been coming weekly for the last five years or more,” says McCormack, gesturing to the room.

For Hormel, that consistency is the key.

“When I was a kid there used to be a ‘Sunny’s Bar’ in every neighborhood.  There was a place where you could hear live music and dance.  That’s gone. There’s only a handful I can think of,” says Hormel. “What does Wednesday mean to me? That’s part of it. Our culture used to have so many more traditions of ritual – groups doing things together.”

As the band comes back to stage just before 10pm and the audience settles back in at their tables, ready to rise to dance when called by the songs of the second set. The band plays into the night, and readies for Wednesday nights to come.

Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn sits on a quiet street 1.5 miles from the nearest subway stop. The bar has hosted Smokey’s Round-Up since September 2006.  Photo: RR Sigel, March 4, 2026.

Sunny’s Bar sits on a quiet street on the water’s edge in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The bar has hosted Smokey’s Round-Up since September 2006. March 4, 2026. Photo: RR Sigel.

Aidan McCormack has been coming to Smokey’s Round-Up weekly since moving to New York City last year. 
March 4, 2026. Photo: RR Sigel.