APRIL 16, 2009 ISSUE
Peter Rowan: A MerleFest Original
Peter RowanBefore thousands of chairs and a state-of-the-art sound system hemmed in the enormous Watson stage. Before a dozen other stages sprang up featuring artists who weren’t even born when Merle Watson was still alive lined the Wilkes Community College campus. Before MerleFest drew tens of thousands of roots music fans from around the world to a sleepy town in the North Carolina foothills, Peter Rowan and a few of Merle’s friends paid tribute to their friend by getting together and playing the music he loved.
“It wasn’t even a MerleFest,” said Rowan. “It was me and Chet Atkins with Mac Wiseman, Doc Watson, Marty Stuart, Mark O’Connor, Jerry Douglas and Earl Scruggs. That was the first year. We played out in field near the school in the back of a truck. The audience was sitting on hay bales. It was the anniversary of Merle’s funeral and we had come up the year before and had all been there for Merle.”
And he’s been back every year since. Virtually no other artist beside Doc himself has a closer association with MerleFest than Rowan.
A native of Massachusetts, Rowan’s soaring tenor voice has been heard in many contexts throughout his prolific career. From a stint as a Bluegrass Boy alongside Bill Monroe and his famed recordings with supergroup Old & In The Way, to collaborations with his brothers, Crucial Country and Crucial Reggae bands, and his recent quartet with Tony Rice, Rowan has left an indelible stamp on American music.
Rowan’s association with Doc and Merle Watson extends back to a tour billed as the Great American Road Show with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s John McEuen and the late fiddle master Vassar Clements.
“And so Merle and me and John and Doc and Vassar and Merle lived on an old tour bus that belonged to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,” said Rowan. “Literally, [Doc] just never forgets the great continuation of music through these experiences of traveling the road and doing the hard work.”
Rowan fondly remembered the festival’s growth in the early years and the names and faces that seemed to return virtually every year.
“There’s a core group of people that have been behind MerleFest for all these years. In the early years, my gang that I sort of hung with and played with out of Nashville was Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Connor and we all played,” said Rowan. “At the time, all of us had a little more flexibility, so now everybody’s doing their own thing, their own jams. Now it’s almost like, ‘keep your head down and get to the next place.’”
Asking Rowan to name a few of his favorite MerleFest moments might be akin to asking Bob Dylan which of his songs are his favorites. Nevertheless, Rowan dashed off a series of defining festival experiences that still resonate including a reunion with several of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, a performance by Crucial County with Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Stuart Duncan, performances with the Nashville Bluegrass Band, and a special set alongside his brothers Chris and Lorin in Old-Time Tent.
“It was particularly gratifying for me to have my brothers there and to sing that family harmony,” said Rowan.
One unexpected highlight according to Rowan, was the rapturous response during the performance of his band Crucial Reggae.
“When music is getting really right in there, hitting the note, there’s something that’s like fire. Folks in Jamaica would holler ‘Crucial!’
“As a songwriter, I wanted my songs to have that crucial feeling. It’s like a musical feeling,” said Rowan. “It’s like when Bill Monroe would whoop during the middle of a song. He told me stories all about hollering during songs.”
For his 22nd MerleFest appearance, Rowan will take the stage with none other than the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band. In addition to Rowan on guitar and vocals, the band features Jody Stecher on mandolin and vocals, Keith Little on banjo and vocals, and Paul Knight on bass. According to Rowan, the band arose from some informal jams 1.5 years ago that took place in the California countryside.
“I got very excited because I haven’t had a vocal bluegrass band since Old & In The Way that focuses on the excitement of great harmony singing in the bluegrass tradition. That kind of gave me a rebirth of enthusiasm,” said Rowan.
In addition to his bluegrass band’s Watson Stage performance with guitarist George Shuffler on Thursday, Rowan will again take to the Watson Stage on Friday morning alongside Canadian outfit The Duhks and Jim Lauderdale. On Friday afternoon, Rowan will team with longtime friend and collaborator Tony Rice for an intimate performance in the Walker Center.
While he misses the days when MerleFest was more about picking with old friends than racing from stage to stage, Rowan is no less excited to again be a part of the festival that has given him so much.
“There’s still that wonderful connection with all those players that I’ve been up there with and with Doc,” said Rowan. “It’s all part of a big family tree and Doc is the man who waters our musical garden.”
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