Bryan Bowers
Bryan Bowers was supposed to visit us last year but for health reasons, was unable to. We are very happy he’s ‘back on the horse’ and agreed to join us this year at MusicFest!
Born in 1940 in Yorktown, Virginia, Bryan was raised in New Bohemia near Petersburg of the Civil War’s Battle Of The Crater fame. As a child, Bowers would tag along with the field workers and gandy dancers and learned to sing old call-and-answer songs. Bowers recalls, “The music I heard while working in the fields was mesmerizing. And, I’d see the gandy dancers coming down the tracks, setting the rails and getting their ties straight. You’ve heard that song `Whup Boys, Can’t you line ‘em?, Chack a lack.’ Whup Boys, can’t you line ‘em? was the call the leader would sing. Chack a lack was the bounce-back of the hammer after falling on the pin. “The roots of the music had gone real deep in me. Music was real fulfilling, unlike anything I had ever done before.”
“Bowers is widely regarded as the leading virtuoso on the autoharp… Bowers also has distinct gifts as a singer and songwriter.” -People Magazine
It wasn’t long before Bowers encountered the autoharp. “I ran into a guy that played several instruments and could get the harp in good tune. He played without any fingerpicks, just with his fingernails. He had a real sprightly style on it. It was the first time I’d heard someone play it in good tune and play it well. It opened my eyes and my ears. I went out and got one the next day.”
Bryan relocated to Seattle in 1971 and played for coins as a street singer and in bars for the right to pass the hat. Once he had polished his technique, he headed east in a 1966 Chevy panel truck he affectionately called “Old Yeller.” “The Dillards heard me in DC when I went to the Cellar Door,” recalls Bowers. “I introduced myself and played the `Battle Hymn Of The Republic’ to show them how the harp worked. Sam Bush, Curtis Burch and Courtney Johnson of the New Grass Revival were there.The Dillards took me to a bluegrass festival at Berryville, Virginia and when they got an encore, they put me out there for their second encore, saying `Here’s a guy you ought to hear.’”
Bower’s creativity and talent have won him induction into Frets Magazine’s First Gallery of the Greats after five years of winning the stringed instrument, open category of the magazine’s readers’ poll. In 1993, Bryan was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame to stand only with Maybelle Carter, Kilby Snow, and Sara Carter.
For nearly three decades, Bryan Bowers has been to the autoharp what Earl Scruggs is to the five-string banjo. He presents instrumental virtuosity combined with warmth, eloquence, expression and professionalism.
