Asheville, NC– We are thrilled to announce Peter Rowan will be joining The Mosier Brothers for a series of select shows! Peter Rowan has played in Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman in the supergroup Old & In The Way, and with Tony Rice and a host of other acclaimed musicians throughout his storied career. Now, the Grammy winner joins The Mosier Brothers, the Atlanta band that evolved from the psychedelic hick-hop jamgrass band, Blueground Undergrass.
Rowan says, “I am always ready to collaborate with Jeff Mosier and his fine musicians, to explore the musical tree of Americana-bluegrass roots. We might even find some new branches on the old tree! We can harvest new fruit from old roots!”
Jeff Mosier and Peter Rowan met in 1985 on Mosier’s radio show in Atlanta. Since 1998 they have shared the stage together many times including Suwannee Springfest and Magnolia Festival in Live Oak, Florida. Rowan has always been a key figure in The Mosier Brothers career giving them what Mosier calls “the inspiration to fly between the extremes of traditional and progressive bluegrass music styles, even entering into psychedelic jamgrass and rock.”
The Mosier Brothers, originally from Bristol, Tennessee, have always maintained their “brother sound” amid their various configurations. The solid band sound that Rowan had heard from them over the years, along with their collective stage experience, eclectic musical taste, and genre bending tendencies, created the perfect creative soil in which to forge ahead with a project which both Mosier and Rowan had been thinking about for years. Johnny Mosier’s ability to switch-hit between playing bluegrass with flatpick style guitar, to rock, swing, and jazz on electric guitar, along with Jeff’s unique ability to compose “pick and jam” rock songs on the banjo, are the true ingredients of the “Mosier sound.”
Veterans of the jamband and jamgrass scenes, The Mosier Brothers have been entertaining audiences for over 30 years (longer if you consider pickin’ on the front porch with their family), first with the bluegrass band Good Medicine for 23 years. In the late 1980’s, Jeff Mosier got his first experience playing Rock on the cutting edge of the newly developing jamband scene as a founding member of Col. Bruce Hampton’s Aquarium Rescue Unit, the band that gave him the stage name “Rev.” In 1994 he toured with Phish and tutored them in the ways of bluegrass. The Phish Companion writes “Perhaps no guest artist has had as great an influence on the band’s music as the Rev. Jeff Mosier…”. The brothers re-joined in 1998 in Jeff Mosier’s first nationally known brainchild, Blueground Undergrass, one of the earliest bands to merge bluegrass instruments and traditional tunes with the magnetic energy of Rock n Roll. Then, in 2010, they formed The Mosier Brothers which more finely blends the traditional bluegrass sound of Good Medicine and the jamming of Blueground Undergrass into a more song-driven Americana roots rock unit, all while remaining an eclectic endeavor.
For these “Roots and Branches” shows, Peter Rowan and The Mosier Brothers will be performing an A-Z retrospective of Rowan’s musical career. The band will take the audience on a musical journey that builds throughout the evening, starting with the traditional bluegrass of Rowan’s days with Bill Monroe in the 1960’s, then leading into the progressive bluegrass years of Old and In The Way, Crucial Country, and The Free Mexican Air Force. The result: a night of life-affirming songs with rich melodies and harmonies, all led by the compelling stories of Peter Rowan that will serve as the backdrop for each musical number. Of that, Mosier says, “I think people really want and need to hear ‘songs’ now more than ever, and more importantly, the stories that inspired them.”
Mosier continues, “We can go anywhere Peter wants to go musically with this show, because his career helped mold our own musical taste. He’s been such a major influence on us. He’s like our Bill Monroe and Beatles all in one. The Monroe generation of players spawned the Rowan generation, and the Rowan generation spawned the Mosier generation, no doubt.”
Johnny Mosier adds, “After years of enjoying Rowan’s music from the audience, to actually perform with him on stage is a true joy and career high for me.”
Peter Rowan and The Mosier Brothers will be both acoustic and electric for each performance, as will their band of Kris Dale on bass, Edward Hunter on fiddle, and Will Groth on drums. The Rowan/Mosier recipe will give the songs a new spin while keeping the original flavor, in what promises to be one of the tastiest of musical collaborations.
