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Too Short :: DeDe Vogt
 DeDe
Vogt is a musician/singer/songwriter and owner of Sound & Fury Recording
Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. She has two solo releases, Willing Suspension
of Disbelief and Cartoon Flat as well as the Cowboy Envy
releases, all of which were recorded at Sound & Fury with Vogt as producer and
engineer.
She is a guitarist as well as bassist with bass being her primary interest. She
received a gold record for her work on two cuts of The Indigo Girls debut Epic Records
release. She appeared last year at Lincoln Center with recording artist Elise Witt
and now appears regularly with Cowboy Envy and the Atlanta-based countryrock band Gracie
and the Slipcovers.
She has produced and engineered over thirty independant releases and appears as
a musician on nearly one hundred.
Her compositions have appeared in various documentaries and films, one of which
stars Jim (Ernest) Varney - a very "B" film but a nice walk to the mailbox
if ya know what I mean.
The idea for Cowboy Envy was conceived by Vogt sometime in the early '70s when
playing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She ventured into a small club named Cat's
Cradle and witnessed the flawlessly entertaining and musical performance of Riders
In The Sky and said to herself, "I want to grow up and be like that
someday." Well, the growing up part didn't happen, but years later, after a
few phone calls, Cowboy Envy did. Frenchy, at first, was forced to refuse membership
as Vogt's initial name for the band was to be "The Cows." Frenchy was not
thrilled about this. Soon thereafter Vogt proposed the name Cowboy Envy and Frenchy
replied "Mais Oui!!!" After a call to Buffalo K and an abounding "yep," Cowboy
Envy was born.
The rest is the future.
Buffalo K :: Kathleen Hatfield
Note: Since my friend Arty is such a better writer than I am, I thought his take
on this whole bio thing couldn't help but be better than mine. So here it is.
Buffalo K
Kathleen Hatfield is one singer-songwriter whose talent
and work can call to mind an older tradition - that of the troubadour who roamed
from town to town spreading poetry and music. It may be a song about the north Georgia
mountains that makes you wonder why you ever put the pavement of Atlanta under your
feet. It may be her rendition of "Home on the Range" that makes you believe
there is nothing more beautiful than prairie grass from horizon to horizon and a
million stars overhead. It may be a song of the West that makes a drugstore cowboy
like myself think he's capable of saddling up Old Paint and rounding up the herd.
(And I'm allergic to horses and haven't eaten beef in years.) It's all part of Ms.
Hatfield's magic.
Like the troubadours of old, versatility is a hallmark of Ms. Hatfield. Her voice
moves from standards, traditional music, rock-and-roll, bluegrass, country-and-western,
and jazz with ease. With her published "Sunrise on the Plains" (a painterly
song in both melody and word that is on Cowboy Envy's latest release, Wagons Ho!)
and cache of art songs under her belt, Ms. Hatfield has distinguished herself as
a writer as well as performer.
On guitar and vocals as part of the trio, Cowboy Envy, Ms.
Hatfield (Buffalo K), has found a perfect match
with Berné Poliakoff (Frenchy)
and DeDe Vogt (Too Short).
The three create a world as colorful as a Pecos Bill tall tale and as exciting as
a radio serial.
Ms. Hatfield also performs as lead singer with Full
Moon Trio, a fiddle/guitar/upright bass combo and was lead singer in the bluegrass
band, Gypsy Heart. She is an Atlanta native, well known in the Atlanta music scene,
and all who have heard her work know it is only a matter of time before a wider audience
is caught up in her musical magic.
Arty Schronce
February, 2002
Frenchy :: Berné Poliakoff
Frenchy (aka Berné Poliakoff) hails from the
garden spot of Spartanburg, South Carolina. She got her early training, at the age
of four, at Miss Marion's School of Dance. Unfortunately, the lessons didn't take.
She began playing guitar and singing at local haunts in Spartanburg at the tender
age of 14, inspired by the likes of such local heroes as Walter Hyatt, Champ Hood
and David Ball. While majoring in voice at the College of Charleston, Frenchy knew
she had to make music her career - especially because she hates to wake up early.
She has made her home in Atlanta for more years than she cares to admit.
Frenchy has been singing and playing guitar at the South of France Restaurant
for ten and a half years. She sings Joni Mitchell, Fats Waller, Bob Dylan, some originals
and some French songs. She likes to pretend she's French, but she's not fooling anybody.
Frenchy occasionally sings jazz with some of Atlanta's best musicians and has been
known to sing an aria or two in rare circumstances.
Cowboy Envy is like a dream come true for Frenchy. She gets to sing cowboy songs,
play dress-up, show off her amazing skill with whips and make-up stuff. Frenchy has
written several songs for the band, including the world's only known cowboy tribute
to Tony Bennett, called "I Left His Heart (in San Francisco)" and a paean
to cows everywhere, called "Born To Be Branded."
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