Guitarist Anthony Etri wound up with a nickname that sounds like a pigeon English description of an unfortunate collision between vehicle and plant, Bus Etri. The nickname might have been the result of this player being on the road all the time, not an off-mark assumption considering the guitarist's long affiliation with the barnstorming Charlie Barnet band. Then again, the nickname might have been given to him as an omen, a suggestion of a safe mode of transport which went sadly unheeded, Etri's career ending in a fatal car crash while on tour in California in the early '40s.

His family was quite involved in music, including a brother named Ben Etri who played saxophone. Of considerable more fame was his cousin Tony Mottola, studio guitar wizard and muzak innovator. Bus Etri's professional career began in the Hudson-DeLange Band in 1935. The leadership of this ensemble soon flowed off into two rivers, the guitarist choosing the Hudson, as in the Will Hudson band. This was the group Etri was still playing in come Barnet's interest in him in 1938. The guitarist remained with Barnet until the car crash, the affiliation resulting in most of the passengers, so to speak, on Bus Etri discography. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi