Bryan Bowers was raised near Petersburg,
VA. As a child, he would tag along with the field workers and gandy dancers
and learned to sing old call-and-answer songs. In the late 1960s, Bryan took
up the guitar, but it wasn't long before he encountered the autoharp. "I ran
into a guy that played several instruments and could get the harp in good
tune. It opened my eyes and my ears. I went out and got one the next day."
Bryan relocated to Seattle, WA 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 to DC, where the Dillards heard
him perform at the Cellar Door and introduced him to bluegrass audiences in
the area.
From his rather unglamorous beginning as a street
singer, Bryan Bowers has become a major artist on the traditional music
circuit. He has redefined the autoharp and is also well known as a
singer-songwriter. Bryan has a dynamic outgoing personality and an uncanny
ability to enchant a crowd in practically any situation. His towering six
foot four inch frame can be wild and zany on stage while playing a song like
`Dixie' and five minutes later he can have the same audience singing `Will
The Circle Be Unbroken' in quite reverence and delight. |
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Bowers recently gathered 55 of the best autoharp players in the world to
record a 3 CD set, Autoharp Legacy, with 64 tracks
of autoharps (often accompanied by other instruments and singing). He
has put out an instructional video on autoharp playing and 5 audio
recordings for Rounder/Flying Fish from 1974-2000. For nearly three
decades, Bryan Bowers has been to the autoharp what Earl Scruggs was to
the five-string banjo. He presents instrumental virtuosity combined with
warmth, eloquence, expression and professionalism.
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