Autoharpist Bryan Bowers entered the world in Yorktown, Virginia, on August 18, 1940. Railroad workers’ call-and-response harmonies drew him into singing as a child. He later attended Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, where guitar became his first instrument. An itinerant multi-instrumentalist introduced him to the autoharp, and he took to it at once. Leaving school behind, he relocated to Seattle in 1971.
In Washington he performed on street corners and inside barrooms, sharpening his autoharp technique through constant practice. From there he traveled to Washington, D.C., and caught the attention of the Dillards while playing at the city’s well-known folk venue, The Cellar Door. He accompanied the group to a bluegrass festival in Berryville, Virginia; when they invited him onstage for the closing encore, the crowd erupted. His distinctive five-fingered picking style, unlike the conventional strum, brought added resonance to his already forceful stage presence.
Bowers joined the Flying Fish roster in 1977, and the label issued his first album that same year. View from Home included appearances by New Grass Revival members Sam Bush and Courtney Johnson. The 1980 follow-up, Home, Home on the Road, highlighted both his remarkable autoharp command and his relaxed humor. Always equally at home as a vocalist and raconteur, he delivered rich singing and Celtic settings on the 1982 album For You. Even so, live performance remained his natural element; throughout the 1980s and ’90s he maintained a steady schedule of festivals and workshops. In 2000 he returned to recording with Friend for Life and also produced an instructional autoharp video aimed at intermediate players ready to explore more advanced repertoire and techniques.
