Peter Rowan's New Acoustic Trio

A skilled singer/songwriter and musician, Peter Rowan has been a force in acoustic music for nearly 40 years. He toured the country as rhythm guitarist and lead singer with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, and subsequently played and recorded in such groups as Jerry Douglas, Tony Rice, Earth Opera, Mexican Air force (featuring Tex-Mex accordionist Flaco Jimenez), Sam Bush, Yonder Mtn. String Band, String Cheese Incident, Alison Kraus, Ted Logan, Guy Clark, Don Edwards, and Old & In the Way, with David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Vassar Clements and John Kahn. Rowan has made more than 20 albums, including the Grammy-nominated Yonder.

As a songwriter, Rowan's tunes have been recorded by such artists as The New Riders of the Purple Sage (Panama Red), George Strait (Dance Time in Texas), Michael Martin Murphy (Land of the Navajo), Ricky Skaggs (You Make Me Feel Like a Man), Desert Rose Band, Janie Fricke and many others

Peter has explored rock, Tex-Mex, Irish, country, rockabilly, folk and reggae—integrating all of these influences into his unique brand of acoustic music. He is currently one of the most in-demand artists on the folk-bluegrass scene. His tremendously successful 1988 collaboration with The Nashville Bluegrass Band was a Grammy finalist, and his 1990 "DUST BOWL CHILDREN" received unanimous critical acclaim and won two National Association for Independent Record Distributor Awards.

One example of Peter's cross-pollination of bluegrass, "Reggaebilly", Rowan mixes reggae and bluegrass together on a level never seen before. He went to Jamaica and recorded some original, and some traditional, bluegrass-based songs with a group of top reggae session musicians including bassist Chris Livingston, guitarist Chinna Smith, drummer Squidley Cole and keyboard player Robbie Lyn. He then brought the tapes back to Nashville and Austin and added layers of conventional bluegrass instruments played by such masters as Jerry Douglas on Dobro, Eddie Adcock on banjo and Stuart Duncan on fiddle. In Rowan's hands, the different musical worlds come together beautifully in a hypnotic fusion that's perhaps best exemplified by the glorious version of "The Cuckoo Bird," the traditional, minor key, Appalachian mountain song. Rowan's voice floats beautifully above the percolating Jamaican rhythms and bluegrass comping. It is a real treat to hear musicians of this caliber whose experiments at something new and different result in such a successful cross-cultural musical hybrid.

A follower of Tibetan Buddhism, Rowan is well-traveled and well-schooled. He compares Monroe and his pioneering music to the nature poets and painters of the seventh-century Chinese Tang dynasty, who similarly evoked the 'high lonesomeness' that he says is at the heart of Monroe and bluegrass. He always follows his muse, says Bev Paul, Sugar Hill Records' director of sales and marketing. He does world music projects, old-timey music, and now he's back to bluegrass, where his roots are. He's even starting to look like Bill Monroe, she says.
Rowan represents what is coming to be known as third-generation bluegrass, says Paul. Monroe and people like Earl Scruggs were the first wave, and then there was a flurry of activity in the mid-'60s. Now we're feeling the third wave roll into the 21st century --- and Peter's leading that charge.