Introducing... Massachusetts bluegrass stalwart and Grammy Award winner

Peter Rowan, who plays Fibbers in York on Tuesday.

Peter Rowan learned his craft with bluegrass founding father Bill Monroe in the Bluegrass Boys, then played his part in the folk-rock band Earth Opera, the jazz-rock fusion group Seatrain, the Rowan Brothers and Old & In The Way with The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia. His distinctive voice, rhythm guitar work and deft songwriting have helped fuel the acoustic music revival for nearly 40 years. Next week he has a solo show in York, as Charles Hutchinson reports.

Why are you playing solo on this tour, Peter?

"It's a way of preparing to bring over my trio either in the Fall or the new year, so I'll be playing new songs that I'm working on at the moment down in Texas, where I'm recording. It's a new sound for me: percussion, guitar, Tony Rice on mandolin, me singing and writing the songs.

"It's too early to tour with the trio as it's just coming together but by next year I hope to come back to the UK with the augmented sound."

What instrument do you favour for a solo show?

"I'm bringing over a little guitar that was made for me for solo performances by Julius Bargas. I'd heard that he was making it specially for me: he lives about ten miles from where I was born and raised, and it was amazing to go back home last year and be gifted this guitar.

"I'll have a mandola as well, which is one of those mandolins shaped like a viola."

What are the plus points of a solo show?

"You get very attentive audiences and no distractions, particularly in the British Isles, where they're intense listeners. I discover new things about songs when I play this way, and the trio tour will bring out things I'll learn in the solo format."

Do you enjoy playing in Britain?

"Playing solo is like playing without a net, and travelling in England for me has always been a time for developing new material. British audiences are pretty insightful to what I'm doing and they listen with a real sense of history. I get grandfathers listening to me along with their grandkids.

"Last year, when I played York, I was given a tape of my first show in England with Bill Monroe in 1965, and I'm now working on a project, a manuscript, about my time playing with Bill."

What are your memories of Bill Monroe?

"When you play with a guy of that calibre, who'd already been doing it for 30 years and was in his 50s, he wanted certain things to spark the guitar. So you would learn the timing, and with Bill it was always the timing, never 'a' timing. You learnt how to strike the rhythm guitar in a way to lift the music.

"Bill always taught you these things in the hope that you would carry it on, follow the musical tradition but then bring it along yourself."

What do you take from the past into the present?

"My Monroe manuscript is part memoir, part diary, recalling those days with Bill when I was a wide-eyed 23-year-old. Now I'm a wide-eyed old man, but there's a connection you make with your past. Still doing that music in the present, you realise your music grows spherically, and travelling adds another element to your musical alchemy."

What marks out bluegrass from other forms of "unplugged" music?

"I must say that, coming from bluegrass, we have an approach a little different to most 'unplugged' shows, where they're playing acoustic instruments plugged in. We don't. We have the ability to project; we treasure the magical sounds of acoustic instruments. Bring a couple of amps and let if fly."

Peter Rowan plays Fibbers, York, on Tuesday, supported by Bo$$caine and Colour Of Fire's Mike Newsham. Tickets: £12.50 advance, £14 door.

Updated: 16:18 Thursday, May 05, 2005