the 1950s. | Amanda Rowan
A life lived in music holds more stories than could ever truly be told. This goes for legendary singer and songwriter Peter Rowan whose young days in the parks and pubs of 1950’s Boston weave an intimate tour through folk history. Rowan will be performing at this year’s WinterWonderGrass Festival, which will return to Tahoe from April 1 to 3 for the first time since the pandemic.
Just imagine: A song from his teenage sock-hop group, The Cupids, plays on WCOP radio as Rowan’s mother drives him to the train station near Wayland, Mass., in 1956.
“We modeled it, like The Beatles did, after the Buddy Holly thing,” says Rowan. “It had harmony singing and great playing.”
WinterWonderGrass | April 1-3 | Palisades Tahoe
An hour later, 14-year-old Rowan walks into The Golden Vanity pub in Kenmore Square to hear Piedmont fingerstyle guitarist Brownie McGhee pick classic blues with harmonica player Sonny Terry. He then travels to Park Plaza to hang out with Don Stover and the Lilly Brothers at Hillbilly Ranch.
“By the time I was 17 I had already started playing a little bit of bluegrass,” says Rowan. “I played mandolin. I’d go on the bandstand and play for the sailors and women of the town way down in Boston.”
He heads over the Charles River to Harvard Square where fabled New England banjoist Bill Keith is picking bluegrass with Jim Rooney, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and resident folkie Eric Von Schmidt.
“That was where I developed my love of coffee,” says Rowan. “People were smoking pot. They were a little wired.”
One special night 17-year-old Joan Baez shows up and sings “Tutti Frutti” with members of The Cupids.
“We’d just played a rock ‘n’ roll show for kids dancing when we had heard this was the place to go,” says Rowan. “In this building is this girl with bare feet playing acoustic guitar and stealing your heart away, singing these old, ancient songs about silver daggers and things like this. I think that was the best of it.”
“Back then it was a stricter time. You sang about hard times and suffering. Today it’s not hip to be writing about suffering. You forget what bluegrass was in those days. It was a passion. It was a serious passion.”
–Peter Rowan
Roots of the music
It was Keith who introduced Rowan to the godfather of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, in 1963 when he sat in with the Blue Grass Boys for a brief New England run. At the end of the tour, Monroe invited Rowan to Nashville to join the group that started it all.
After four successful years, Rowan left the Blue Grass Boys to join mandolinist David Grisman in psychedelic rock group Earth Opera, which regularly opened for The Doors. He played Telecaster with roots-fusion band Seatrain in the early 70s until the day he dropped off tour in San Antonio, Tex.
He found a cheap motel and walked the night streets perusing Catholic statuaries, flirting with women, eating $1 tacos and listening to live music at local restaurants and pool halls.
“It was an original sound that I loved,” he says. “It goes to show if you follow your inspiration, it may not lead to what you expect, but good things will come.”
It was then he wrote his most popular song, “Midnight Moonlight.”
“It was my fate to stay on in San Antonio,” says Rowan. “It was like the home of Tantric Christianity where the invisible would be made visible.”
The birth of jamgrass
In 1973, Rowan headed to California to reconnect with Grisman. The day after he arrived, they woke up, burned a big one and went for a walk on Stinson Beach.
“You know Garcia lives up the hill and he loves to pick,” said Grisman.
“Sounds fun to me,” Rowan replied.
Later that week, jamgrass pioneers Old & In The Way was born in Garcia’s beach cottage.
“The idea with Old & In The Way was not to be overarranged,” says Rowan. “I think that’s why we got the reputation as a jam band.”
At WinterWonderGrass, expect Rowan to join in as a special guest with other performers of the weekend such as WinterWonderWomen, Pickin’ on the Dead, The Lil’ Smokies and Billy Strings.
“I like the experimentation of the younger bands,” says the 79-year-old musician. “One of the beautiful things about music is it breathes.”
Hopefully, some of Rowan’s ageless bluegrass wisdom will rub off on the young guns.
“If you want to define a classic bluegrass song, I think there has to be an intonation of immortality,” says Rowan. “Back then it was a stricter time. You sang about hard times and suffering. Today it’s not hip to be writing about suffering. You forget what bluegrass was in those days. It was a passion. It was a serious passion.” | peter-rowan.com, winterwondergrass.com
Watch Rowan’s “Midnight Moonlight”
