Bowman Remains True to Bluegrass

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine

August 2003, Volume 38, Number 2

Ronnie Bowman wants to make one thing perfectly clear. He is not bailing from bluegrass music. The former front man for the popular and influential 1990s Lonesome River Band has made several changes in his life since the turn of the millennium clock, but he insists that the title of his third solo album.

“Starting Over” (Sugar Hill Records), is not indicative of a new musical direction.

“I think some people interpret that as me trying to start over and leave my bluegrass audience,” Bowman explains. “It’s starting a new band, not a new career. But, it’s a little different.

“People wonder what’s happening and people talk. ‘Oh, my goodness! You live in Nashville! You’ve gone country!’ The truth of it is Bill Monroe lived here. Del McCoury lives here. There’s just a list that goes on and on and on. I’m just trying to play bluegrass music.”

Perhaps part of the confusion lies with his recent connections to country music. He co-wrote “The Healing Kind” with Greg Luck that Lee Ann Womack included on her multi-platinum CD, “I Hope You Dance.” The same project featured his talents with another LRB alumnus, Dan Tyminski, as a harmony singer on “Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good.”

“It was great. She’s such a great singer. It’s pretty cool when they call up a bluegrass singer to sing on something like that. It was quite a compliment. Just like any singer, if you get called up to do a session, you have house payments. I think that’s what you do. You’re a singer so you sing. If God makes a way for you to make a living at it like me—I’m fortunate. If I get a chance to go do that. I’ll do that. But I’ll tell you what! I’ll never do it just for the money. I don’t do that.”

Bowman was enticed to venture out with country newcomer Rebecca Lynn Howard on her 2002 tour. Also, star producer Don Cook, who has produced award-winning duo Brooks and Dunn, produced two tunes on Bowman’s latest disc including the single “Rise Above,” which was heavily worked to country radio stations. Regardless of his occasional forays into the country music format. Bowman plans to keep dancing with the one who brought him to his first love, bluegrass music.

“I always have loved it from the first time I heard it. I’ve always had this great respect and admiration for all the people that play it and have played it, and I do for people who will play it.”

Bowman grew up in a musical family infused with a wide range of tastes and talents. “My dad played guitar and banjo. My mom played guitar. My sisters played piano and different stuff. There was always music going on at the house whether it was gospel or country or [for] some of my older sisters Motown. I have to give them a lot of credit for that because that encouraged me a lot.”

Bowman. 42, had barely been born when he was taking his first baby steps onto stage.

“I’ve been playing in front of an audience since I was three years old. My mom and dad had a gospel group and would travel around to local churches. We had family get-togethers all the time. People loved coming over to our house— hanging out, laughing, joking, [and] picking a little music.”

A friend introduced Bowman to the sounds of bluegrass one day at his Mt. Airy, N.C., home. After listening to “Skaggs And Rice: The Essential Old-Time Country Duet Recordings,” and J.D. Crowe and the New South’s version of “Old Home Place,” Bowman was hooked. “That got me into it enough. Next thing you know. I’m listening to Carter and Ralph and all those good ones. I think bluegrass is honest enough to when someone hears it like I did. There’s no fluff involved. It is what it is. You like it or you don’t.”

Bowman pursued his passion as a hobby, with no ambition to make music his livelihood. “I was going into my day job at Sara Lee [Winston-Salem. N.C.], and I remember the older guys said to me at the time, ‘Man, you’re pretty good. You ought to do that for a living.’ I just did it for the pure love of it all. That’s why I’ve always done it. But they would just encourage me and then I got to listening to their stories and things they wish they had done now, as they looked back. I just didn’t want to look back on my life and say, ‘What if I had done this, and what if I had done that?’ I felt like I was young enough at the time [that] I was going to go out and at least make an effort, a real all-out attempt and see what I could do. If it happened, that would be awesome. If something happened and it didn’t work out, I felt like I was young enough that I wouldn’t be defeated. I would do something else.”

Luckily, for bluegrass devotees, Bowman found his footing in 1989 with the group Lost and Found.

“Allen Mills gave me a lot of direction. Being a rookie at it, he kind of helped me along a lot—him and Dempsey Young. He said so much. If you know Allen Mills, you’ll know what I’m saying.” Bowman laughs. “I remember him teaching the aspect of playing in a band versus being a good musician.”

Bowman took the lessons to heart as he moved onward and upward in the bluegrass world as lead singer/guitarist for the Lonesome River Band. During his nearly 11-year tenure, Bowman also cut two solo albums, “Cold Virginia Night” (1994) and “The Man I’m Tryin’ To Be” (1998). His talents garnered him critical praise from fans and the International Bluegrass Music Association, including three Male Vocalist Of The Year awards, two Album Of The Year honors for band and solo work, and two trophies for his songwriting skills. That version of the Lonesome River Band changed in the fall of 2001 when the members went their separate ways.

“It was a great opportunity. I had friends in the band, [and] got to travel a lot. We all learned a lot and it looks like we’re all still growing. Living up in Roanoke, Va., it worked out pretty good playing for the Lonesome River Band because that’s where the Lonesome River Band was basically based out of. Once the band changed and everything, it’s like, ‘Shoot, man. there ain’t a whole lot of music going on.’”

Bowman packed his bags for Nashville, where he landed a writing gig for a music publishing company and met his wife and fellow vocalist Garnet Imes.

“Rob and Lisa McCoury are the ones who introduced us. Both of us had gotten out of long relationships. I was married, and she had been in a relationship for a long time, too. So, we were kind of going through that kind of anxiety. It clicked, and it’s been clicking ever since. Garnet’s awesome. I couldn’t ask for a better wife.”

The twosome became one when they married September 29, 2002, but their union goes beyond the wedding chapel. They joined together in song as well for Bowman’s “Starting Over” album. Imes, who Bowman says sang with the Kim Fox Band and added background vocals to Don Rigsby’s record, “Empty Old Mailbox,” also provided high baritone vocals for her husband’s album and accompanies him on tour.

“We get along pretty good I guess,” Bowman laughs. “She goes with me and sings and helps me along the way, makes sure I ain’t got anything in my teeth. She’s one of the nicest and greatest vocalists I’ve ever sung with. I think we blend together pretty good.” She’s not the only one who blended well with Bowman on his latest solo effort. Tyminski, Craig Market, Steve Gulley, and Michael Hunt provided heavenly harmonies. Bowman gladly relinquished the guitar playing on some cuts to Tim Stafford, Mark Casstevens, Market, Tyminski, and Tony Rice. “With those guys, I don’t mind standing back because I appreciate their talent, and I’m a big fan of theirs, too. I want to hear them on my record, too.”

Aubrey Haynie and Ron Stewart support the cast on fiddle, while Stewart picks on banjo, as well. Barry Bales is on bass, Jerry Douglas on resonator guitar, Tyminski on mandolin, and Tom Roady adds percussion parts. “I think it’s really good,” Bowman chuckles. “It just goes along in the series of the previous two records that I’ve done solo. I think it’s more bluegrass than the last one that I did.”

The singer/songwriter relied heavily on Craig Market’s tunesmith skills for the 12-cut album. “They were just really good songs, and I plan on doing another album and, actually, on the next record, I’ll probably end up doing all or most of them that I’ve written myself. I try to pick songs that mean a lot to me, and that might mean a lot to someone else. On the other hand, there’s just some songs that just feel good, and they don’t have to be really deep. They just make you feel like tapping your foot, singing along.

“I’ve had probably more people coming up and talking to me about this record. I’ve had the best response, or at least as good as any record that I’ve done so far. And that makes me feel good. You do a job that makes a difference to people. You want to feel good about what you do.” “Rye Whiskey,” which Market cowrote with Dennis Todd, is one song in particular that touches Bowman. “I remember my daughters telling me, ‘Yeah, dad, you’ve got to record that.’ It’s gotten a lot of attention. It had parts in it that reminded me of my grandmother. In an old folks’ home just off the well-beaten path, I visit my grandmother and learn of our past. She was an important part of my life, like my mom, dad, and everybody. Unfortunately, she passed away. The last year or so of her life, she was in one of those old folks’ homes, a nursing home. She got to the point in her last years where she couldn’t get up and walk that good. I remember going up there to see her a lot, talking to her, and listening to her tell me stories. I recorded the song before she passed away.”

“One Life,” the only song Bowman co-wrote for the CD, tackles acceptance in a world of diversity. We only have one life. Let someone live it. Why don’t we give up intolerant ways? We only have one world, and others live in it. Why don’t we give up instead of hate? “That one kind of speaks for itself. David Via—he’s an old buddy of mine. He came up to my house in Roanoke. We were sitting around writing, and that one came out pretty good. I decided to put that one on the record because I thought it fit the rest of the material. I like to hear albums that sound like all the songs kind of go together—they fit. I like to do that. I like to try to find songs to where I could start a record and by the time the record’s over, it’s kind of like a theme. You kind of go up and down, but it’s the same ride.”

The ride continues for Bowman with a new road band that he’s formed—Mike Anglin (bass and background vocals), Benny Hall (resonator guitar), Jesse Cobb (mandolin), Garnet Imes (background vocals), Steve Thomas (fiddle, banjo, and harmony parts), and Wyatt Rice (guitar). “We’ve played around with a few names, but so far, it’s just the Ronnie Bowman Band or Ronnie Bowman. They’re awesome. I think they’re the greatest because it’s our band,” he laughs. “If you can’t say that about your band, you’re in pretty bad shape. I’m a little biased.” Bowman started thinking about gathering a group of musicians together after he left the Lonesome River Band, but he waited awhile to regroup and to spend time writing music. The new band performed some dates last year and are moving full steam ahead on the road this year.

“Everybody counts on each other. I just want to do the best I can for everyone in the band, also. I’m just trying to lead by doing. I just try to take everything I’ve learned in my career in Lost and Found and the Lonesome River Band, and things that you learn in life, and keep the good and try to do away with the bad and just keep on doing.”