PETER ROWAN
Touring Australia in March 2009 |
Tour Dates
"No other artist pushes the limits of
bluegrass while maintaining a respect for the roots like Peter
Rowan"………Bjorn Weeks
Sound Samples
1. To Live
Is To Fly
2. Dust
Bowl Children
3. Perfection
For over forty years, cult bluegrass and country singer Peter
Rowan has been recognised as one of the finest proponents
of bluegrass and American traditional music ever. Grammy Award
winner and five-time Grammy nominee, he began his professional
career playing guitar, singing lead vocals and co-writing
as a member of the Bluegrass Boys, led by the founding father
of bluegrass, Bill Monroe.
His long career has seen him perform and record with the
likes of Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Norman Blake, David Grisman,
Jerry Garcia, Vassar Clements and Peter Tosh.
Rowan has demonstrated himself to be an artist of unusual
depth and imagination, experimenting with other influences
(rock, reggae, tex-mex, Celtic, swing), while never losing
track of the deep roots and musical purity that are integral
to his presence. He is a singer and songwriter without equal,
and a multi instrumentalist and accomplished guitarist. His
beautiful singing is of the classic high lonesome, borrowed
by Monroe from the Appalachian ballad singers and which became
the defining style of the bluegrass vocalists.
While his music continues to grow and evolve, some things
remain constant – like his ability to weave a spell around
an audience, pulling them into a realm of music like no other
performer.
A follower of Tibetan Buddhism, Rowan is well-travelled 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.
www.peter-rowan.com
BOOKINGS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Ruth Hazleton or John McAuslan
Across The Borders Touring Agency
Phone: (03) 9387 3376 Fax: (03) 9380 8234
Email: bookbmf@yahoo.com.au
OR johnbmf@vicnet.net.au
www.acrosstheborders.com.au
| www.brunswickmusicfestival.com.au
|
Peter Rowan:
What They Say…
‘A night with Rowan offers ghostly echoes of Celtic
and English folk songs, of sea shanties and blues, of
field hollers and south-of-the-border exotica. He pulls
it together under a loose bluegrass label: country 'n'
western without the corn, if you like.’ It is a voice
which spans the gamut of music that became bluegrass.
Like all the best artists, Rowan is no purist, just someone
searching for the most effective way to express himself.
John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald
Rowan is one of the greatest and most important of
all the bluegrass players. He understands what he calls
"the joy" of bluegrass and acoustic music
and, with wonderful artlessness, he insists that he
is coming to Australia to do nothing more than "be
a singer of songs and a player of tunes". His admirers
know he will be much, much more than that.
Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald
In terms of hero status, I place Peter Rowan right
up there with Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, although
whereas these two artists forged a landscape of imagery
through poetic words and music over the last four decades,
Rowan is the 'voice' that very much belongs to that
landscape and which has captivated audiences of Bluegrass
music for the past three or four decades.
Allan Wilkinson, Folk and Roots
|
|
