Bryan Bowers Biography

Bryan Bowers (born August 18, 1940) is an American autoharp player. He was raised near Petersburg, Virginia. 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, Washington 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.

His creativity and talent have won him induction into Frets Magazine's First Gallery of the Greats after five years of winning the stringed instrument, open category of the magazine’s readers' poll. This distinction put Bowers along side other luminaries, such as Chet Atkins, David Grisman, Stephane Grappelli, Itzhak Perlman, Tony Rice, Rob Wasserman and Mark O'Connor, recognized for their personal accomplishments. In 1993, Bryan was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame to stand only with Maybelle Carter, Kilby Snow, and Sara Carter.

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 quiet reverence and delight.

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.