It's Slow Pickin' for Pro Guitarist

By Hector Saldaña
San Antonio Express-News Staff Writer

Guitarist Brent Rowan is one of Nashville's most in-demand electric six-string gunslingers.

The Waxahachie native has played on everyone who's anyone's records, including George Strait, Shania Twain, Mark Chesnutt, Ronnie Milsap and Alabama, to name a few. He's even sat in with Sting. All in all, Rowan's logged more than 10,000 studio sessions on hit albums with more than 100 million in sales. But in more than 20 years in the business, Rowan, 43, never recorded an album of his own.

Until now.

Ironically, it's a peaceful, instrumental album of finger-picked, solo acoustic guitar performances with minimal overdubs and no band. For a guy who "only plays electric guitar on records," Rowan made his debut album, "Bare Essentials," "to encourage people to take a deep breath." The message: Slow down; we move too fast.

"I was talking to myself as much as anybody," Rowan says, alluding to his hectic " sometimes six sessions a day " schedule.

By contrast, "Bare Essentials," available for $19.98 at www.brentrowan.com and toll-free at (877) 693-7848, is restful and relaxing.

"I just wanted to do something totally different, something people who know what I've done for 20 years would never expect. And I love it."

Rowan's gentle music conveys deep emotions. The wistful, melancholic tunes, played with laid-back virtuosity by the guitarist, invite introspection.

"All the answers we need are inside," Rowan says.

The guitarist, who grew up in a Central Texas home where only gospel and country music were allowed, arrived in Nashville in 1977, a 20-year-old kid who didn't know Eric Clapton from Jimi Hendrix. A kindly Music Row producer gave him his first big shot on John Conlee's "Friday Night Blues." His career has ascended on an upward trajectory from there, his résumé featuring a Who's Who of country and pop music, from Randy Travis to Neil Diamond.

The new music on Rowan's solo album was inspired by nature and family life. It is not a "check me out" record, made solely to blow away other musicians with difficult licks. Sweet tones and empty spaces suffice here. He credits the richness of sound on "Bare Essentials" to his handmade Dillon-brand Koa wood guitar. He says its musical spectrum is as wide as a grand piano's.

The recording process was kept simple, too " and old-fashioned. No digital here. One AKG C-24 stereo microphone was all he used in the studio.

"We just moved around the mike to achieve the different tonal things," Rowan says.

The results went straight to a 2-inch analog tape machine through an API-312 pre-amplifier.

"It was analog, pure and fat until the last minute," he explains.

Slight imperfections survive. Only performance and "feel" counted. Rowan dislikes today's glossy studio computer fixes.

"It's not real. There were squeaks on Segovia's records. That doesn't make it bad. To me, that enhances."

In his other life as super-session man, Rowan not only needs extraordinary skills, but the ego to believe he's the baddest cat around.

"Part of me, you bet, still does," he says.

That doesn't mean he doesn't occasionally eat a slice of humble pie.

"Sometimes doing records, I'd play something that Eric Clapton would have been proud of, and the producer goes 'That's a little too rock 'n' roll.' And your heart just sinks because you know they're really not listening. They're between phone calls."

Advice to hot young guitarists: Keep it simple; play from the heart.

"Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, people I really respect, play a lot of machine-gun notes " and that's great. That appeals to your mind.

"Then, you've got B.B. King who walks out with one note and appeals to your heart, and if I have to choose to appeal to somebody's heart or mind, it's going to be the heart every time."