Stewart Cohen
Grace, Hulda and Sophia (from left) will soon be in the studio to record a new album.
When three sisters from Texas sing together as well as the Quebes do, one might assume they started in church. One would be wrong. Fact is, when their peers were still in Sunday school, Hulda, Sophia and Grace Quebe were already touring. “We were never home enough to be in a regular church program,” says Hulda Quebe, speaking by phone to Isthmus.
It was the sisters’ early mastering of the western swing fiddle style that put them on the road. “We started fiddling before we actually started singing,” Hulda says. Still, audience members at the Quebe (pronounced “kway-be”) Sisters March 22 show at Stoughton Opera House will hear Mills Brothers-inspired harmonies that are equally exciting as their Texas fiddle technique.
For the uninitiated, Lone Star western swing music features a three-fiddle attack, fiddles that swoon and swirl above the rest of the band during dance number solos. Think Bob Wills or, more recently, Ray Benson’s Asleep at the Wheel, whose members were early fans of the Quebes.
Dallas is now home, but the sisters grew up in Burleson, Texas, just outside Fort Worth. Quebe says Texas fiddle contests aren’t as big as they used to be. But they were huge when the sisters were in elementary school in the early 2000s. The sisters won state and national championships, in solo and group categories, for four years running.
Hulda says she and her sisters were self-motivated from the start; there was zero parental pressure to practice, tour or compete. Their parents didn’t play instruments, or even records, when the girls were growing up. The fire in the belly of the Quebe Sisters came from a modest spark: “Our mom wanted us to have a musical experience and she always liked the violin. So we started doing lessons,” says Hulda.
Their first album, Texas Fiddlers, a 2003 instrumental release, came out just a few years after their debut fiddle contest in Denton. Since then they’ve recorded two more albums, appeared at the Grand Ole Opry and on A Prairie Home Companion. They’ve shared the stage with Merle Haggard and Hulda’s musical hero, Willie Nelson. The Quebes can be heard on a track with Nelson on the Asleep at the Wheel tribute to Bob Wills, an album that also includes contributions from Dolly Parton and George Strait.
Listen to “Every Which a Way,” the title track from their latest album, and see what all the fuss is about. It’s an infectious groove that demonstrates the multitasking required of the singing fiddlers.
The Quebes are joined on this tour by two sidemen: bassist Daniel Parr and guitarist Simon Stipp. They’ll soon be in the studio together with a new project, an album that will include some originals as well as a song that Hulda says is her new favorite to perform: a cover of Willie Nelson’s “Summer of Roses.”
“The song has so many intricacies to it. It’s very challenging to play,” says Hulda. “We’re all doing these intertwining, different counter-lines over each other. Sophia wrote this beautiful, almost orchestral fiddle part in the middle of it, and I’m so proud of her. It’s gorgeous.”
On the phone Hulda speaks with a Texas candor that reveals she and her sisters have come this far through honest, hard work.
Just don’t ask her who’s the best fiddler in the family. “We all are,” she says, laughing.
