Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band on "Fresh Air"

Peter Rowan    

Bluegrass Band

On NPR's Fresh Air

with Terry Gross

Wed, November 24th

Click here for your local air time and station

In Pittsburgh: WDUQ 90.5 FM - 3:00pm

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Peter Rowan is the real thing

The guitarist and songwriter revisits his growing Legacy



by Stratton Lawrence

Photo by Tim Benco

Backed by his veteran band, Peter Rowan delivers inspired music of all shades

.Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band

Sun. Oct. 17

8 p.m.

$22, $20/advance

Pour House


When Peter Rowan sings, "Amen, holy, hallelujah," telling the tale of burying his father as snow fell down on Easter morning, there's no questioning the honesty in his voice. Just as if he sang the traditional "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" about losing his mother, we'd believe that he was feeling those words in his soul.



But Peter Rowan actually wrote "Father, Mother," on his new album, Legacy, about his dad's passing, and it's all true. In fact, the album's 13 tracks include 10 new songs by Rowan, all of which sound as if they could be traditional tunes passed on by bluegrass bands for half a century.



There's no doubt some will be. Rowan wrote a few of bluegrass music's most widely known and covered songs, including "Midnight Moonlight" and "Panama Red." He began his career as a guitarist and lead singer in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys, a position that alone gave him permanent status among the genre's elite. From there, however, he buddied up with David "Dawg" Grisman in the cross-over acoustic outfit Earth Opera before helping to found Old and in the Way with Jerry Garcia.



Rowan dabbled in rock and reggae in the years since, but always with his distinctive bluegrass twist. With his Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band debut on Legacy, however, he's returned to pure tradition. Longtime collaborators Keith Little (banjo), Paul Knight (bass), and Jody Stecher (mandolin) round out his quartet on the album, along with guest appearances by such bluegrass greats as Del McCoury, Ricky Skaggs, Gillian Welch, Tim O'Brien, and Dave Rawlings.



"Bluegrass has become kind of generalized, so I'm happy to have a band that believes in my writing and wants to make real bluegrass music, the kind of bluegrass I see as being real," says Rowan. Full story in the Charleston City Paper

Rowan continues to get closer

By TOM CONWAY
Tribune Correspondent

Peter Rowan may be the only musician who has performed with both bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe and Grateful Dead founder Jerry Garcia.
With a career that spans more than five decades, Rowan is at ease with hardcore and progressive bluegrass audiences equally, making him an ideal choice to close the Niles Bluegrass Festival on Sunday night.
Rowan began playing bluegrass music professionally in 1964, when he was hired as guitarist and singer for Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys. In his two and a half years with Monroe, Rowan learned the fundamentals and traditions of bluegrass music.
“With Bill Monroe, he definitely wants you to keep it within the lines,” Rowan says in a phone interview from Cape Cod, Mass., where he was taking a break after performing at a benefit concert for Tibetan earthquake victims. “That was a tremendous kind of a discipline for me, so I constantly go back to that.”
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Rowan began blending bluegrass with rock and folk, forming Old & In the Way with Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and John Kahn in 1973.
Rowan says playing with Monroe helped pave the way for the more progressive style of bluegrass he played in Old & In the Way.
“With Jerry, he loved to go outside the lines,” he says. “You really have to know how to go inside the lines to be able to step outside the lines. Otherwise, it is just, like Bill used to say, note-note-note just to be noting. I am a melody guy.”
“Bill used the analogy of a hound chasing a rabbit. The rabbit will go in the same pattern over and over, and the hound will follow him. A good hound will stay with him on the pattern, and then jump across and catch the rabbit. Bill was using that analogy for fiddle tunes, but it is the same thing with melody, in general”
Since 1978, Rowan, a Grammy Award-winner and five-time nominee, has embarked on a well-received solo career. Read more.

Peter Rowan signs with Compass Records, Alison Brown to produce new album.

Compass Records is thrilled to announce the signing of Peter Rowan, the famed bluegrass singer-songwriter, GRAMMY Award winner and five-time GRAMMY Award nominee. Work will soon begin on a new release from the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band with Alison Brown, GRAMMY Award-winning banjoist and Compass Records co-founder, producing. Rowan’s career has spanned over five decades, from his early years playing under bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe, to his ground-breaking stint with Jerry Garcia in Old & In the Way and his subsequent breakout as both a solo performer and bandleader.

Through his continuous stream of original recordings, collaborative projects and constant touring, he has a devoted international fanbase, including Compass Records’ co-founders Alison Brown & Garry West. Brown says "I can’t think of another person in bluegrass with such a varied history: Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, Seatrain, Old & In the Way, not to mention the breadth of the solo material he’s written and recorded. We’re excited to have Peter as part of the Compass family, and with this new record I’m really excited to be working with Peter to shine a light on his bluegrass roots." The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band includes Rowan (guitar, vocals), Keith Little (banjo, vocals), Paul Knight (bass, vocals) and Jody Stecher (mandolin, vocals).


Upcoming dates:

April 24 -
The Station InnNashville, TN
April 28 - Music City Roots
Nashville, TN
April 30 - May 1 - Merlefest
Wilkesboro, NC
May 8 - Great American Music Hall
San Francisco, CA
*as a guest with Poor Man’s Whiskey
May 21 - 24 - Fur Peace Ranch
Pomeroy, OH
May 27 - Harrisburg Midtown Art Center
Harrisburg, PA
For Peter Rowan’s complete list of tour dates, click here.

Peter Rowan on Bill Monroe as father figure

...bluegrass remains his touchstone no matter what musical road he's walking. It's only recently, however, that he's come to terms with Monroe's imposingly pervasive influence, a paternal role that the bandleader was loathe to let Rowan forget.

"Not long before Bill died in 1996, I was playing at Wintergrass in Washington with Old and in the Way, and he sneaks up on stage, gives me a full body block and knocks me away from the mike," Rowan recalls with a laugh. "He says, 'I taught him everything he knows! I taught him how to play. I taught him how to take a bath!' That's the way Bill was.
"For years I struggled with bluegrass being Bill Monroe's music, and for years I did my own thing based on my song-writing, based on all these influences, like Tex-Mex, reggae and rock. But I think I feel that by fertilizing this idiom, I have a role to play in this music."

Full article.