If I had to identify something different about our music it would be that there is an element of the rock poets, such as Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen, in our songs. I do not mean we are writing songs like those people. But if you listen to "To Love You Right" or "Will You Come To Heaven With Me", "Texas Medicine", or "You’ll Never Find Another Like Me" from the "River Bolt Of Lightning" album, I think you will see a little heavier dose of poetic lyrics than in the typical country song.

To me, the attractive thing about that approach is that the songs wear well over many listens. The lyrics have something to offer on repeated listens. Whether that is a draw back in immediate appeal, I do not know. I am too close to the songs to judge that. But it is a risk, I guess.

The poetic influence does not apply throughout the album, however. "Sittin’ and Starin’" I wrote in high school, for instance, and the first song I ever wrote. It has simple lyrics, but they hit on a basic level that I think appeals to the "first love" syndrome in us all. It used to go over well in clubs around the Houston area where we played, so we put it on the album. We also like a dose of fun. "Fat Farm" is poetic, but is fun and pretty accessible to the listener.

As far as comparing our songs with songs that are out there, I frankly like the old country music because it seemed more genuine. There are some very good songs that are current or recent. I do not mean to imply that. But country music is a business, and too many songs are being written for a business appeal to a young audience, and I personally do not like songs fabricated for pure business reasons.

We do not write "old country music". Hank Williams and others did that about as well as it could be done. Fundamentally, the one thing I can guarantee you is that we write songs that we like. They are not fabricated for the market, though we try to show the songs we think will have appeal.

  The rock poets are an influence, as I have listened to them a great deal, and so has Doug. However, I have many discs in my personal collection. I have a lot of country music. I grew up listening to country music and what was then rock n roll, much of which is now classified as country. I learned to play guitar to Hank Williams records, and I have everything of Hank Williams’s that is available on disc or record. I have every box set of Ernest Tubb from Bear Records. In fact I have about 20 Bear Records box sets. I love Johnny Horton. I love Jimmie Rodgers. I can sing you more country songs than the night is long.

I frequently went to the country music dance halls of south Texas when I was in high school. At that time country music was more regionalized in its popularity, and I got to see George Jones, Jim Reeves, and many other great artists. If you listen to the disc "River Bolt of Lightning" the underpinning is country, despite some lyric treatment that might owe more to the poets than to the traditional country writers. However, if you listen to "Only Car In Your Garage" , which is a rousing good time song - perhaps honky tonk is its roots - there is little doubt that we are coming from a country base. Same with "She’ll Teach You Like A Child".

My father, Max Fry plays bass, and my sister Darelyn Jennings is the lead female vocalist. We three have played music together for many years. My father also plays guitar, and he helped me learn chords back when I was in junior high school. Long ago, he played in a band in Washington State.

My interest has been songwriting. At Texas A&M University, Doug Sharp and I were graduate students together, and we have been writing songs ever since. He helps write lyrics, and I write music and lyrics. I built a recording studio in my garage where I recorded some demos of songs.

I met Kurt Zech when I landed a gig playing a Houston Oilers Kickoff Party (they were the professional football team in Houston), and I needed a backup band. Kurt played with a band called Easy Time. The drummer in Easy Time happened to work for my father. Kurt and some of his band backed me, Darelyn, and my father for that gig, then Kurt began coming to the studio to help record demos.

Randy Leblanc also worked with my father. Randy has been in several good bands, and was coming to the studio from the beginning. Before long, every Thursday night many musicians were getting together, jamming and recording at the studio, which we named "Night Train Studios". You can hear a reference to it at the beginning of Texas Medicine on our disc.

Lance Webb joined us thanks to his wife, Barbara, who was a student in my class at the University of Houston, where I was teaching at the time. She came to me after class and said she had heard I played music, and asked if her husband could play drums with us, as he was driving her crazy at home. :-) Before he moved to Houston, Lance had a band called Zeus, which was one of the top bands in Florida, so he was ready to play.

We met Ken Bujnoch, who plays keyboards with us, when we went to record a song in his recording studio. Ken had been the keyboard player for a top Houston band called Second Coming. We all became friends, and he joined the band. He operates a recording studio for a living, and we recorded and mixed our disc "River Bolt of Lightning" in his studio. Lance introduces Ken at gigs as the best keyboard player in his price range in town.:-)

David Brown and Peggy Neff, who did background vocals on "Texas Medicine" were regulars at the Thursday night jams, and were band members before David moved to Hawaii and Peggy joined another band. My wife, Judy Lou, knew someone who knew Nancy Fauber Ho, and she joined the band. Nancy sings background vocals on Mr. Heavy.

  I guess the first big aspect of the disc is that Dr. Fry’s Texas Medicine Band IS a real band, and we actually record our music. The sound is not a typical Nashville production. I think the players in Nashville are the some of the best in the world, and they really know how to put together a song. Some of the people in our band are not as good as the Nashville musicians, though some are. But there is some variety that is provided by independent sounds, and there is some commonality that creeps in when the same studio musicians are on all the albums.

Our disc is not a standard sound, but we basically tried to put together an album with some fun in it and good lyric quality creeping in every now and then. We recorded most of the songs in one or two takes. That approach may work against us, but it has not so far. I think one good thing about Independent artist music is that the sound varies a lot.

  European Djs are like the U.S. Djs of the past. They are free to play what they want. I liked the idea of that freedom and thought it a better test of any appeal we might have.

For instance, thanks to posting of songlists on the Internet I learned that in France one day "Fat Farm" was played on the same playlist as a Barbara Streisand song! THAT is Freedom to play what you want. Djs in the U.S. are free to play what they want primarily only on small stations or public radio programs. Djs in Europe love the music and typically do not play music for a living but because they love it. That love of the music appeals to me, and I wanted to be a part of it and contribute to their efforts. Hopefully they would like our songs, and some did.