John Cowan will be touring this Fall with an acoustic trio during a break in his schedule with The Doobie Brothers, to whom he had returned as a full time member in 2010.
Most of us in the bluegrass world were introduced to Cowan through New Grass Revival, who dominated the progressive bluegrass scene in the 1980s. They very nearly made the jump to mainstream success, but disbanded when that attempt fizzled in 1990. John worked with the Doobies from ’93-’95, before returning to the newgrass world as a solo artist, where he plied his trade until last year.
He will reunite with former John Cowan Band-mates Jeff Autry on guitar, and Shadd Cobb on fiddle for selected dates October through December. John will be on bass and lead vocals. Their show will be drawn from John’s deep recorded catalog, and he is excited for the chance to play the bluegrass/jamgrass circuit again.
“Our music has evolved organically, it’s rooted in my New Grass days but I’m also exploring and breaking new ground as well. These guys are very talented and I love playing with ‘em…of course the true measure is the fantastic response we’ve gotten from audiences on tour, we love performing, it’s food for the soul.
What we did back in the NGR days was unique…we weren’t really playing bluegrass, we were playing contemporary music on traditional instruments. Our vision was to take acoustic music somewhere new. The John Cowan band is now recapturing the magic of that ground-breaking experimentation and taking it to the next level, come out and see what I mean, a JCB jam is something special and we’d love to share it with ya’all!”
Dates for the Fall Cowan tour are being handled by John Everhart at Keith Case & Associates.