John Cowan
Born to Sing
by Michael Parrish

John Cowan's voice is unmistakable — a powerful blast of white soul with a tinge of gospel and a rock 'n' roll edge. It's hardly the kind of voice you would expect fronting a bluegrass band, but that's just what Cowan did for the New Grass Revival from 1974 to 1989. After a decade of diverse and rewarding rock and country projects, Cowan is back in acoustic music, fronting the John Cowan Band and recording the recently released, self-titled solo disc. In a recent phone interview, Cowan talked about his musical history, his new roles as bandleader and songwriter, and his plans for the future.

"My dad was an amateur singer, and his mom was a semi-professional singer, so it's in my family, although I'm the only one of my siblings who's ever been involved in music," said Cowan, explaining how he developed his powerful and unique style. "I sang in church as far back as I remember, and I always loved music. I can remember hearing 'Hound Dog' on the radio when I was three or four and riding in the car. When the Beatles hit, I was just the perfect age to be swept up in the whole Beatlemania thing, and it was just coincidence that they turned out to be so brilliant musically.

"When I started playing in bands at age 14, all the black artists were crossing over onto white radio. At that age, when you're very spongelike, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Motown music, Philly music, and Memphis music. I could always sing real high, so I learned every song Aretha Franklin had ever recorded and could sing them in the same key. As I got older and my tastes changed, I got exposed to more things, like Mavis Staples, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cook and the Soul Stirrers. A lot of black gospel music has great attraction to me as a singer."

After playing in a series of bar bands, Cowan was hired into New Grass Revival to play electric bass, which was in itself unique in bluegrass at the time. For the first couple of weeks they played together, Cowan mentioned repeatedly that he could sing pretty well, but Sam Bush was considered the band's lead vocalist. Finally they let Cowan sing a version of Jackson Browne's "These Days." As Cowan tells it, Bush told him afterwards, "I guess you're the lead singer now."

Cowan explained that fitting his singing style into the relatively structured context of bluegrass music was a challenge. "I love bluegrass, and I love folk music, but I learned early on in New Grass Revival that I can't sing that way, so why bother? Up until that point I was pretty much an imitator, and then I was thrown into this musical situation that I knew nothing about, and I had to sing like myself. The guys in the band were really encouraging about it. At that time, Sam [Bush] and Courtney [Johnson] and Curtis [Burch] had grown up playing bluegrass, but the very premise of the New Grass Revival was to take these traditional instruments and play contemporary music with them, so they were very supportive, too. They said, 'We like what you do, do it more. If you want to try to be Ray Charles singing Bill Monroe, go ahead. We like it!' "

This is an excerpt from issue #91.
photo by Mickey Krakwoski