Bryan McDowell

If you came to this page to understand who Bryan McDowell is, you won’t leave with the question answered. The only answer to this is in hearing his music… not just once, but many times, taking in his shapeshifting lyricism and deft navigation of both original and traditional territory with any of a long list of his collaborators and contemporaries.

​But to begin to respond to the question in words, we can say that Bryan is an Appalachian musician. That is, his roots are in 9 years of work with first generation bluegrass fiddler Arvil Freeman, and his first connection was to the mountain culture of Western North Carolina and its acoustic traces. His influences are the refrains of Doc Watson, Norman Blake, and other classic folk pioneers, passed to him from his clawhammer banjo-playing father.