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When Chad Houser, the nationally known founder of Café Momentum, began talking with Eric Nadel and the country swing band, the Quebe Sisters, about a summer concert in downtown Dallas, none of them knew how poignant the moment might be.
Nadel, the “voice of the Texas Rangers,” who in 2014 was inducted into the media wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, has been struggling with depression. As a result, the 72-year-old broadcasting legend has, so far, missed every game of the best Rangers’ season in years.
And yet, he continues to be involved in his other great passion — music — which is why he’s bringing to Café Momentum on July 23 the Dallas-based Quebe Sisters.
The Quebe Sisters (whose name rhymes with “maybe” and “baby”) have announced that their tour, which wraps up at the end of 2023, will be a swan song — at least for a while. For the trio that specializes in “progressive Western swing,” a la Bob Wills, the next step will be what the sisters are calling a long-awaited, much-needed hiatus. A time to regenerate.
Which brings us to Café Momentum, now facing the worst moment in its history. In early April, Omarian Frazier, a 17-year-old intern at Café Momentum, was fatally shot on Ross Avenue.
Another teen, Omarian’s friend, was wounded. Both had been interning at the gourmet restaurant on Pacific Avenue, which provides skills to juvenile offenders. National media coverage of its mission has aided Houser’s efforts to expand nationwide. On March 1, a Café Momentum opened in Pittsburgh, and last year, the operation expanded to Nashville.
For Nadel, the Quebe Sisters and Houser, the concert represents not only a promise of good music but also an opportunity to address a delicate moment in each of their lives. For Nadel, music is the balm that soothes his soul. For the Quebe Sisters, music is not only their livelihood, it is their raison d’être. For Houser, it is the 50th show in the series, a testament to music and its power.
Introspective sisters
Grace, who at 37 is the oldest of the Quebe sisters, says “introspective” is the word that captures perfectly what the band is feeling.
“Definitely, yeah,” she says. “Absolutely.” Her sisters are Sophia, 35, and Hulda, 32, a trio of home-schooled girls who grew up in Fort Worth and who have never been apart.
“We concluded in May,” says Grace, a fiddler extraordinaire, “that we were going to put a pin in our live touring and performances. My sisters and I have been playing as a band for 23 years.” The band’s popularity has extended to the Grand Ole Opry and Prairie Home Companion, and now, a new frontier.
The onset of COVID-19 in 2020, coupled with shows that were rescheduled or canceled, “took the wind out of our sails in terms of a band’s momentum,” Grace says. “But during that time, it proved to be a blessing in disguise. It gave us time to delve into new instruments and to try different things.”
Most of all, it gave the Quebe Sisters a new direction, “to branch out individually and then, hopefully, come back together.”
Even so, she calls the pending breakup “bittersweet.” In the same way that Nadel and Houser are coping with change and fate, so too are the Quebes.
It is by no means an estrangement, like that of Simon & Garfunkel. “It’s really not,” Grace says. “But we get that question a lot. We are choosing not to play together but not because we don’t want to be around each other.”
As for Nadel, “I don’t have a timeline for returning to the Rangers,” he says. “I do feel that my situation has improved. I’ve had major issues with sleep, anxiety and depression. I’ve tried different forms of treatment and just haven’t felt ready to come back and do the kind of job that I believe the fans deserve.”
It’s quite a change, having been part of the Rangers’ radio crew for 44 seasons. But at least music has been there, to provide solace and support when he needs it the most.
“Music is one thing,” Nadel says, “that has kept me going.”
Nadel met Houser in the summer of 2017, when the two launched the idea of a Sunday supper music event. It grew into the Café Momentum concert series. And now, Houser and Nadel share in common the fact that music has become a theme in both their lives.
Like Nadel and Grace Quebe, whose lives at the moment have been altered by change, so too has Houser’s been whipsawed by, in Bob Dylan’s words, a simple twist of fate.
Simple but deadly. He continues to feel devastated by the homicidal death of a beloved intern, a grim reality that leaves him angry. But most of all, it makes him sad.
“There is so much gun violence going on,” says Houser, who grew up in Allen, where on May 6, nine people, including the perpetrator, were killed in a mass shooting. The youngest victim was a 3-year-old boy.
“It’s really scary. What I want to articulate out of this is that it’s part of something bigger. Just understanding gun violence and how it has affected our entire organization — it’s affected our staff, and they’re on the front lines. It’s not just one incident. It’s a lot of incidents happening, and it affects you. You question, ‘Am I not doing enough? How can I do more? What are we doing wrong? How can we get this right?’ Our young people are truly affected by it. It affects their disposition and psyche. They’re scared.”
Which makes him happy that we at least have music, at a time when he and Nadel and the Quebe Sisters and all the kids he helps need it the most.
Details
The Quebe Sisters will perform on July 23 at Café Momentum, 1510 Pacific Ave. in Dallas. $98, includes gourmet meal, drinks (beer and wine) and music. Tickets available at eventbrite.com or cafemomentum.org. Doors open at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 6:30 and the concert after that. The show will benefit the nonprofit mission of Café Momentum.
CORRECTION, 6:05 p.m., July 5: In a previous version of this story, a photo caption misidentified Chad Houser as the co-owner of Café Momentum. He is the founder and executive director.
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