|
 |
| |
|
Who can say what music really is? It's a formless energy that moves people. It's a good place to put your head. Whether it's from stuff you've heard or whether it's from stuff you want to say, you just put your head in that space. -Peter Rowan |
|
|
| |
|
Photo by Todd E. Gaul
JamBase: Playing acoustic music?
Yeah. It keeps you humble. You can do the electric thing, it's fine, but you end up simplifying. You're no longer into the subtleties. Now a guy like [Jerry] Garcia kept all that in his playing, and on the other end of all the electric music, you heard his jazz records he did with Dave Grisman. You can't deny that all that stuff that was in his playing acoustically was behind all his electric playing, you know? But, there is a magic moment of connecting with the audience. There is for sure a sense of picking up on the vibe of the audience. Heck, the audience gives as much to it as we do really.
Is there a crowd size where that becomes harder?
 Peter Rowan & Tony Rice by Paul Cheney |
Any more than 600 people for us – well, we do festivals of more than that but it depends on the theatre. If it's a good 1000-seat venue, that's fine. The Variety Playhouse in Atlanta has good sound and I think it fits 1200 people and we've just about filled it. Had no problem, it was great. Other places might be more difficult because of the hall, because of the concrete floors or brick walls or something like that. We are really bound by our approach but that's okay.
There's an intimate nature to acoustic music that could be lost on a giant stage.
You can still have fun though. If I do a larger festival I like the freedom that using a rhythm section gives me. You can be more expressive in a broader way. I'm a vocalist so whatever kind of backup is going to give me the lift to relate to a bigger crowd of people, that's fine with me. But an acoustic quartet has got its own special charm. MerleFest is big, but the thing is that people now are more educated about music. I think something started to change when Jerry Garcia played with Old and in The Way and suddenly there was a bluegrass band. Nobody ever thought we were going to be on the charts, and then people started listening and started paying attention to where that came from.
Then in the 1980s artists like Nancy Griffith came out playing pretty acoustic. It's the people hitting the road playing acoustic music that set that framework and it comes in waves. A large part of the audience [that] used to listen to the Grateful Dead now is aware of all [the] music that the Dead used to listen to, and that goes back into history and then they bring that to our concerts. We have a good time playing to an audience that has some sense of where it comes from.
One of the great things about bands like that is if people want to look deeply into it they can be exposed to the whole rest of the musical spectrum.
Well, they're so documented, too. I mean everything's footnoted now with the Grateful Dead, right?
I think they've transcribed the stage banter at this point.
 Tony Rice by Todd E. Gaul |
Right. If they play some song then they'll footnote it and they'll say where the song came from and then which song it was taken from before that. I don't know if there is a sense of a new wave of American spirit. It's got to be the beginnings of something with this whole change in the government right now. I mean some of those guys are standing up and saying [something], but they're so polite, the Democrats, you know? They don't have the whole Cold War spy technology behind them like the Republicans. Patrick Leahy gets up and he's very polite.
Today in Afghanistan is the first music festival since the Taliban ruled. They were saying it was an amazing scene. People were just flocking to this thing because they were just so starved. Most music was outlawed there.
Okay, so now there's a different thing, right? There's where music is the lifeblood of the people. It reawakens in you the dream, and I guess we could say that it does the same thing here. As jaded as our audiences may be - cause nothing's keeping anybody here from hearing music - when you balance it against Afghanistan it brings you back to what music is for - gather the spirit of the people for sure.
It's an old festival. It went on forever but the Taliban did away with it. Now it's coming back.
Wow, now there's a destination.
It's another market for grilled cheese sandwiches. A lot of people feel like art has to be political, and then there are people who feel like it has no place. Is there an obligation on the part of an artist to speak out?
I don't know. We provide what's called a good time. A good time. There's goodness in the musical experience that makes people feel this goodness in themselves, you know, the positive qualities. And you can take it from there. There are people who ramp it up all the way up to saying, "Positive qualities! People, we must be positive!" I don't know, man. I don't know if it changes anything. I mean you could sell a lot of records by being a political act, for sure, but I do think music in itself spreads the message.
If you can spread joy that sort of takes on its own political meaning.
 Peter Rowan by Todd E. Gaul |
Yeah. The people feel the joy inside themselves. The music is just a little key into the locks of the people's hearts. It makes them feel good, have a good time. Then there's an artist like Michael Franti who is overtly political and the music is a world-beat kind of sound. Well, the audience isn't pondering his words but they're just sort of rocking out dancing. And I don't know if those people are conservative or liberal, they could be anything. And he says some sort of political thing and everybody gives a big cheer but what it means ultimately I don't think you can say. They're just having a good time. Republicans will dance to the same music [laughs]. It's all a theatrical display, you know? You never know the motivations.
Franti's actually out there doing more than a lot of folks to organize.
No, that's a great band. His drummer Manas [Itene] is the best guy on that stand. I mean he is really good. I just tried to get him for a recording session but unfortunately he was on tour. He's played with my reggae band before. He's the major guy in that band. He's a very powerful guy.
A lot of the musicians from Africa really have a thing. I've been listening to Ali Farka Toure. He has a record called Savane – King of the Desert Blues. African music has such a strong spirit to it, especially with these individual artists. But then you look at the liner notes, you realize, wait a minute, there were a lot of overdubs done in Paris. So it's a French connection. Oh, it was a French colony. Oh, okay. It's very clever with what they're doing with what the world music market is, but you've got to love it for what it is.
Continue reading for more with Peter Rowan...
| 