The buzz about the Quebe Sisters has been growing steadily over the past couple of years. What started as one lone bee has doubled, tripled, quadrupled and amassed into a huge swarm of music lovers who hear the purity and joy of their music. The sound of three incredibly unadulterated voices uniting in song and playing some of the most uplifting and technically proficient fiddle playing is impossible to ignore. The Quebe Sisters are going places and spreading their unabashed Texas swing style music from shore to shore.
Thanks to Hulda Quebe for answering these questions.
How would you describe your music to someone who had never heard it before?
Our music is a blend of acoustic Americana styles. We play country, jazz, western swing Texas Style fiddling and a wee bit of bluegrass.
I was curious about the fiddling championships in your home state of Texas. I looked up some information about the state championships and was surprised at all the different rules. Did you have opportunities to play solo as well as with accompanists?
Texas competitions vary quite a bit from contests to contest. Typically though when you compete you have at least one guitar player to accompany you.
What are your earliest memories of playing? Did you all learn to play around the same time? Were any of you drawn to other instruments as well as the fiddle?
One of my earliest memories of playing are practicing outside all day and into the night in our backyard in my playhouse. I had it all rigged with lights, a tape player and a boom box. I’d pretty much lived out there as soon as it was warm enough to play my fiddle. My sisters would write notes about my playing and put them in the window. We still laugh about it today : ).
We all started playing at the same time, which is a little unusual since the oldest in the family usually starts playing first. In our case it worked well for us because we all progressed at the same pace and when we started playing arrangements we were all at the same level.
We do play other instruments but nothing stage worthy : )
When did you start singing together? Is the harmony singing something that you worked on to perfect or is it just natural? (Whatever your answer…your voices meld together perfectly).
You are kind, singing has been a wonderful and fun challenge for us.
Singing came later for us. We had already been playing some gigs as an instrumental band (and had even recorded our first album) when we met Ricky Skaggs in Fort Worth and he planted the idea in our heads to start singing. Once we got going with it we fell in love with vocals.
You were recently featured on a new tribute album celebrating the music of Bob Willis and His Texas Playboys put together by Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel. You’re included in a pretty impressive list of musicians like the Avett Brothers, George Strait, Merle Haggard and others. What was your reaction when you were asked to participate in this project?
We are thrilled to be a part of the album. We’ve been friends with Ray and Asleep at the Wheel for quite a while so when Ray called us and asked us to come down to Austin and lay down some tracks we were extremely excited! Getting to be on an album with so many great artists AND to share a track with Willie Nelson is a real honor. In March we spent a whole month touring with the Wheel promoting the album and we had an absolute blast.
Tell us about the other members of your current band. Who are they and what do they play?
We’ve got Daniel Parr on stand up Bass and we have Simon Stipp on guitar. Both guys are monster players and we are so happy to have them in the band!
What’s up next for the Quebe Sisters?
Touring, working on new music, more touring and more new music! We are really excited about growing our band, playing new venues and festivals and making some amazing memories along the way. We love playing music and we are blessed to that folks come out to hear us and support what we do.
