The music of Ann & Will Rowland

June 13, 2007

What goes into putting a folk duo together? For Ann and Will Rowland, it was falling in love.
While Will was playing tenor banjo with his brother and dad, churning out old Roger Miller tunes, folk songs, and sad country ballads, Ann was tackling her first guitar, a pink Harmony that she got at a yard sale.
As time went on, Will performed in a variety of bands, influenced by James Taylor, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Cat Stevens - and soon found himself switching from banjo to guitar when The Beatles came along.
Ann, influenced by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Sally Rogers, and Jimmy Driftwood, started writing her own songs and began playing the coffeehouse/folk festival circuit. A few more years, and Will and Ann would fortuitously meet - forming both a marriage and the musical duo that they’ve become today.
“After we met, one thing led to another, and we got married,” Ann explains, “but we didn’t really settle into playing music together as a duo until much later. We had performed with another couple for a few years, but circumstances changed, and we decided to pare things down and just be ‘us.”

RECORDING
The Rowlands recorded a couple of CDs, - namely Ready for the Storm and Stuff That Works - and released them in 2002 under the “band” name Floodgate; in 2006, they would record two more discs, dropping the Floodgate name and settling for a name that suited them better - the simple and direct Ann and Will Rowland. “We dropped ‘Floodgate’ for a number of reasons,” Ann chuckles, “the greatest of which was the plethora of ‘floodgates’ out there - everything from financial institutions to heavy metal bands - that were just not us.
Fast forward to today, and Ann and Will Rowland are one of the most respected folk music husband-and-wife duos in Michigan. Will now plays both six and 12-string guitar, bass, mandolin, and even pulls out the banjo from time to time, while Ann has stuck with her guitar work, has added lap dulcimer, and is working on claw-hammer style banjo “although right now, we’re not subjecting anyone to that yet but our cat,” Ann laughs.
While the two musicians share a love for music and their marriage, their styles are quite different, so it took some work to blend their sounds together, but that same diversity makes their live performances even more dynamic. Will’s style is quite energetic and detailed, while Ann’s is very laid back and more folky; she has helped draw him towards more roots music, while he has encouraged her to step out and sing more harmony vocals and other challenging parts. “We like to mix it up,” she says.

OBSCURE COVERS
Currently working to integrate more original songs into their sets, the Rowlands also perform a large range of covers, but not the typical ones you might be used to hearing.
“We do play a lot of covers,” Ann explains, “but they’re mostly obscure enough that the majority of our audiences associate the songs with us. We are careful to credit the songwriters, but we also try to put our own stamp on every song that we do.”
Many of the Rowlands’ song choices are so catchy, their audiences even sing along. “And we certainly don’t mind when listeners become familiar enough with our music to do that,” Ann says, “but we also like to think that the songs we choose and the songs we write have enough to say that the listen-and-appreciate type audience leaves a concert with something to think about, even if they’ve not heard the songs before.”
Those audiences have enjoyed the Rowlands’ music all across Michigan. They’ve been a fixture at such summer festivals as Blissfest and the Hiawatha Music Festival, have played downstate at such venues as the Trinity House in Livonia, Mama’s Coffeehouse in Birmingham, and at the well-received house concert series Music in the Burbs in Bloomfield Hills. They’ve opened for the likes of Ricky Skaggs, John MacCutcheon, and Peter Ostroushko, too - but one of their favorite places is closer to their Northern Michigan hearts, namely the Peace Coffee House in East Jordan. “Every concert has a memorable moment, but the Peace Coffee House always has a great audience,” Ann enthuses.
And this summer will introduce even more folks to the Rowlands’ music. They’ll be performing numerous engagements at The Terrace Inn in Petoskey through the summer and at the gazebo in Boyne City on July 11. But with so much on their musical burners (“there are a bunch of things cooking right now,” Ann says,) the best way to keep track of the Rowlands’ show is via their website, www.annandwillrowland.com - because if you’re a fan of heartfelt folk music, then this duo is one you won’t want to miss.