Album Notes

"The rain man gave me two cures. He said, "Jump right in." One was Texas medicine; the other was just railroad gin...."
-Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again - Bob Dylan

DR. FRY'S TEXAS MEDICINE BAND
Is "an 8 piece Houston group and one of the finest country and old time Rock n Roll bands in town..."
-Music News(Houston) - April 1989


Dr. Fry's Texas Medicine Band is a Houston area band that has concentrated on recording original music in recent years. Dr. Fry is Clifford Fry, who is a Ph.D. economist. Clifford grew up in the country dance halls outside of Kingsville, Texas and began playing guitar in the early teen years. It was in high school in Kingsville that Clifford wrote his first song, "Sittin' and Starin'" featured on the "River Bolt of Lightning" disc.

Clifford met Douglas Sharp in graduate school at Texas A&M University in the late 1960s. Having no money, they spent their time listening to their record collections or singing in "the midnight choir" when not studying. After leaving graduate school Clifford and Doug began writing songs together. After winning several awards in the American Song Festival and other song contests, and after recording one LP album of their songs, Clifford built a studio to begin making demos of their songs. Every Thursday night musicians would gather for fun and recording, out of which "Dr. Fry's Texas Medicine Band" was born. The band included Clifford's sister, Darelyn Jennings on vocals, as well as his father, Max Fry, on bass, as well as five other musicians with extensive band experience.

The band played many clubs in the Houston area to standing room only crowds, playing a mixture of rock and roll and country, with original songs to the band mixed with covers. The band's specialty was FUN, a party band, though some serious music was played. The band played for many Houston corporations, such as Conoco and Compaq Computer, and was the "house band" for the President of the University of Houston for many years. A second LP was made of original songs but not distributed, though the band had one nationally released single on Fraternity Records in the mid 1980s.

In the early 1990s Clifford moved to College Station, and the band began concentrating on recording. The effort resulted in "River Bolt of Lightning", released to country radio in Europe in the fall of 1999. The album reached several European Country Music Association Top 40 Album country charts, and the band has appeared on several Most Played Independent Artists charts in Europe. Several songs on the album have charted, including Mr. Heavy, which reached #12 on the EMS Top 40 Independent Country chart. Only Car In Your Garage was featured on Car Talk, a PBS radio show, and several songs from the album were chosen for release on compilation discs distributed by the ECMA, Stardust, HOTDISC, and Texas Twister.

The band's music was featured consistently on syndicated radio programs and other radio shows. The band entered the Top 25 of the World Wide Mainstream Artists - Most Played Artists Charts in February 2001 and has been in the Top 25 of most played artists much of the time since then, once achieving the position of #3.

The Texas Twister disc "Texas Medicine" includes some songs that have received significant airplay. A DJ favorite is "Her Goodies Aren't As Good As Mine", which was on European country charts. Dr. Fry's Texas Medicine Band is dedicated to producing quality sounds for country radio that are not based on current trends and are not predictable. For all of 2002 the band was #23 on the Most Played Worldwide Mainstream Artists Chart and received good reviews in several prominent music publications.