Tyrannosaurus Chicken

Smilin’ Bob Lewis

Instrument: guitar, slide guitar, dobro, 4&5 string banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, fiddle, bass percussion, harmonica, keyboards, vocals, etc.

Birthday: 8-21-51

Hometown: Paris, Arkansas

Current Residence: Fort Smith

Years with the band: From the beginning, maybe two

Music Career History: Started playing at church when I was eight, bars when I was 13, playin’ for dances all through High School, I’ve been playin’ music for 50 years.

Music Influences: My family, early blues, hillbilly western swing, then the 50s era and 50s hillbilly-they didn’t call it bluegrass til the late 50s, rock and roll, Bob Wills, early bluegrass, then the british invasion, Motown, and then the 80s… but always the blues. Church was the first though because I actually started playin’ my instruments first in church.

I remember havin’ a little fiddle and guitar but I was playin’ the mandolin first then guitar, others soon followed. I can’t remember when I didn’t play some sort of instrument.

Favorite Bands/Music Genre: Early Blues, Bluegrass, Old timey.. I like jazz, swing and rock too. I don’t know if I have a favorite band, there a lot of them, it would be hard… Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Bill Munroe, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, B.B. King, Blind Willie Johnson, Tampa Red, Led Zeppelin… Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Earl Scruggs, Dock Boggs.. etc.

Hobbies/Favorite Past Times: music, luthery, archaeology, art, television, camping

Favorite Event / Gig Locations: wakarusa, harvet, helena blues fest, juke joint fest, fayetteville, the middle of nowhere, anywhere there’s an interested crowd.

Favorite Band Story: It was funny when I caught Rachel eating out of a trash can at a festival and then hanging upside down from a tree and playing guitar.

Favorite Fan Story: All our friends are getting up in front of the stage dancing frantically and yelling our names so it sounded like a hundred people, lol, making a scene, being excitable.

Something for the Fans to Know: we owe any success we get to them and that we’re amazed how much they like us, and we are very appreciative of them. It’s amazing how many of our fans are now our friends. We’ve met some of the best people from being out, playing, and consider ourselves very lucky to be able to do so.

Rachel Ammons

Instrument: fiddle, slide guitar, banjo, viola, juice harp, ukelele, percussion, vocals

Birthday: August 29th 1985 (interestingly enough, at exactly 8:29)

Hometown: Barling, Arkansas

Year with the Band: Almost two years. Don’t quote me on that. I’d check the myspace inception date. I don’t know. I hardly ever check it.

Current Residence: Barling, Arkansas… I’ll most likely be moving to Fayetteville when I can get things organized..

Music Career History: My mom has the best voice and sang to me a lot. I loved to hear her sing in church, and when I turned 12 I joined the choir too. I was embarrassed to sing by myself though and never really used my voice outside choir until the past year or so, and it took some convincing. I started playing violin through the public school sometime in the sixth grade, pursuing the classical style throughout highschool and college, then picking it back up a couple years after college with a less rigid mindset. From that point on my involvement ahs steadily increased. Having Smilin’ Bob as a bandmate really inspires me.

Music Influences: Probably everything… When I was young I listened to a lot of ZZ Top, lol. Um.. also church music… then I went a period of about six years where I listened pretty much only to classical and opera.

Favorite Bands / Music Genre: Delta blues/rocknroll/trippy, Ping Floyd, Ben Miller Band, Cars, Yodeling, Polka, LCD Soundsystem, Clouddead, that one guy and the magic pipe, mr. bungle, manu chao, koonda holoa and the beetches, nathan browningham, Led Zeppelin, GodSpeed You! Black Emperor, Apex Twin, Lou Reed, Depeche mode, Magnetic Fields, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Blind Willie Johnson, Dock Boggs, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Missippi Fred MacDowell, Son House, The Golden Gate Trio.

Hobbies / Favorite Past-Times: entymology, drawing, painting.. art stuff, reading sometimes, fixing things, making new instruments, repairing instruments.

Favorite Event / Gig Locations: Harvest Fest, Wakarusa playing from 9:30 til the sun came up with Ben Miller Band outside the Mudstomp tent. Love the smoke and barrel. Really anywhere people come to listen.

Favorite Fan Story: A guy once told me he drove 14 hours to come see the live show… and yeah he seemed like a normal person. Lol.

Something Special for the Fans to Know: I know Bob and I both appreciate everyone who comes out to shows or listens to our music on the computer or on a cd… just a couple years ago I wasn’t playing guitar or singing any songs, but now I can do a lot more, and I’ve learned a few new instruments. With everything I try, the positive reaction to it just makes me able to relax and try something else, which I never thought I would be able to do. If I hadn’t gotten a lot of overwhelming encouragement from everyone, I wouldn’t be where I am. As a side note, a lot of our fans are our friends now… and I hope they all know we love em and are lucky to have met them <3.