After five decades in the music business, Peter Rowan doesn’t feel at all like he’s old and in the way. Instead, he said the feeling he gets from playing with current bandmates Keith Little, Jody Stecher and Paul Knight reminds him of working with the late Jerry Garcia in Old & In The Way because “they were so willing to support my ideas.”
Indeed, at a point when many musicians with Rowan’s resume and tenure are keeping schedules that are light on appearances and heavy with recycled material, Rowan said writing material for his new Legacy recording and performing those songs in support of the project have rejuvenated him. “It’s sort of miraculous when you finish a song,” Rowan said in an interview with Bluegrass Today. “I think that’s what keeps me strong.”
Rowan had just come from playing on a radio show that included a surprise drop-in by Tex Logan. But while his publicist was excited about Logan’s appearance, Rowan was more inclined to share another development from that radio performance. “Even today, I found some new ways to play some chords,” he gushed.
Rowan knows that reality extends beyond the songs and will determine how long he gets to play this batch on the road. “We’ll see how the record does,” he said. “If it gets popular, hey, we’ll be out there.” If not, he would start searching for material for the next project. “Hey,” he said to me, “I wanna hear your songs, man.”
[Editor’s note] Here is a video of the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band performing a song from Legacy (Jailer, Jailer) on the Music City Roots radio show last month.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BHtO8lxLg0
