The Dave Rowe Trio will perform at “Remembering Tom Rowe: a Celebration in Song” on May 10 at the Franco-American Heritage Center, 46 Cedar Street, Lewiston. 

Left to right :  Ed Howe, Dave Rowe, and Kevin O'Reilly

By Bob McKillop

The Dave Rowe Trio – the story of how this great Maine folk and bluegrass band came into being would make a great movie script.  The characters include many of the most famous names in Maine folk music over the past forty years, and the plot reads like a list of television reality show spin-offs, or the genealogy of the old testament (Devonsquare begat Schooner Fare, begat Rowe by Rowe, begat Turkey Hollow, begat Murphy’s Lawbreakers, begat The Dave Rowe Trio).  It’s an important story to Maine folk music fans and musicians, and it is not anywhere close to being over.  Dave Rowe and his band continue to evolve and develop their music, and have become successful at making a living at it.  As Dave said to me during our talk a few weeks ago, “I can’t image myself doing anything else”.

Picture a boy scout camp back in the 1960’s; a young camp counselor by the name of Steve Romanoff strums his guitar, sings a Tom Paxton or a Seekers tune, and leads a group of youths in song.  Two teenagers named Tom Rowe and Harvey Weinstein find something in those simple folk tunes that inspire them.  They, along with that camp counselor, grew up to become important folk musicians in Maine, and helped to get this story started.

A decade later, Tom Rowe joined the legendary folk band Devonsquare; Steve Romanoff and his brother Chuck were already members.  The three of them struck a chord together, and had some ideas about how they’d like to write and perform that differed from the rest of the band.  They left Devonsquare in 1975 to form Schooner Fare, and began gigging in earnest all over Maine and New England.   They became quite popular, and eventually Tom Rowe decided to devote himself full-time to Schooner Fare.

Tom’s son, Dave, did not have a great interest in music during his childhood.  But about the time that Tom began his full-time work with Schooner Fare, Dave was in his early teens, and was pestering his mom for a piano and lessons.  Dave’s grandfather had purchased a new baby grand for his home, and Dave was presented with grandpa’s old piano; after a year or so, he finally got to take lessons.  It was a life-changing experience for young Dave Rowe.

“I was set, I wrapped my teeth around that, and it locked me in; there was just no other way for me to go.  I was a musician at that point.”  Says Dave.  “Up to that point, I could have been a doctor, a lawyer, it wouldn’t have mattered.  I had no preconceived notion of what I wanted to do with my life.  But as soon as I started playing the piano and taking lessons, it was like Reverend Jim biting into the brownie – OK, I’m a musician;  there was just no other direction to go”.

Dave’s life as a performer began when he learned to play the bass guitar.  His dad had purchased a Steinberger bass, and Dave thought that playing that bass just looked like a lot of fun.  Tom lent Dave a fretless bass guitar on which to learn.  It was heavy, it played hard, and it had no position markers on the neck for reference.  Dave was learning to play on pitch strictly by ear.  As a result, he had to work harder, and he learned very quickly.  Tom told his son, “you’re doing pretty well, what you need to do is, to get a gig”.

Schooner Fare had played a gig with Tommy Makem, who told Tom Rowe that his kids were forming a band, and needed a bass player.  Tom volunteered the information that his son was a bass player.  Pretty soon, the young Makem brothers were driving two hours one way from New Hampshire to pick up the too-young-to-drive Dave and bringing him home for the band’s rehearsals, and then returning him afterwards.  Dave stayed with the Maken Brothers as bass player for several years until Connor Makem took over those duties, and Dave went to college.

Dave spent a semester at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Harford, and did some work at the University of Southern Maine’s music school, but came to feel that college and gigging did not mix well.  “You can’t get a degree in writing folk songs” Dave declares. “So what else was there for me? It was either classical music or jazz, neither of which ever really floated my boat.  I could spend 4 or 5 years studying classical music, or I could go out on the road and do what I was going to do after I had a music degree anyway.  So I quit; it seems to have worked out; twenty years in the business and here I am!”

Just after Dave quit school, Don Campbell had finished recording his first album, “Part of Your Heart”, in Tom Rowe’s recording studio.  Don was in need of a bass player, and Dave ended up with the job.  The folk duo played gigs together, four or five nights a week, for three years.  Harvey Weinstein and others in Dave’s musical circle still tell him that Don and Dave were the tightest duo they had ever seen.  “We have very similar voices,” Dave says. “ When we used to harmonize together, you couldn’t tell who was who; I mean, it was scary, we were very tight vocally.”

Dave credits Don Campbell with setting him on the road to become the type of musician that he is today, thanks to a suggestion Don made one day.  “Don said ‘Dave, you know what would be really fun, is if you could play great guitar, and then we get another great bass player, and we could go out as a trio.’”  This led Dave to begin “woodshedding” on the guitar, and he became quite good.  Unfortunately, by that time, Don and Dave were no longer playing together.

But, before Don and Dave had broken up as a duo, Dave had begun to rehearse and perform with his dad.  This was around the year 1992, when Dave was in his early twenties.   They gigged together and made several records as “Rowe by Rowe” until 1998 when Denny Breau joined them, and the duo evolved into the folk trio “Turkey Hollow”.  This trio enjoyed great success and cut two albums, and performed around New England for six years, until Tom Rowe’s illness and death in 2004.  Besides the intense personal loss, Dave Rowe was faced with some professional decisions to make.

 Dave explains, “I always had the solo thing going on, and it’s where I really wanted to be; I wasn’t getting out of Turkey Hollow what I wanted to get out of it.  All three of us knew we wanted to do music full time, and we were enjoying it.  But I was in a very different place than these two older guys who had gone to high school together. Very frequently I was the “odd man out” when  business decisions had to be made.  It was fun, it was eight years, closer to 12 if you count the Rowe by Rowe years.  But at the end of the day I still wasn’t doing what I wanted to be doing.  After my Dad died, it was me and Denny Breau, and we didn’t have the history that he had enjoyed with my dad.  Consequently, as much as I adore Denny Breau, it was too hard to continue without my dad.  We really saw things differently as businessmen.  We had a very amicable parting of the ways, but not before I had formed another band!”

Dave had known Ed Howe, the blazing fiddler for The Dave Rowe Trio, since Ed was about 12 years old.  Don Campbell had been recording Ed and his brother Thomas, who were just amazing kids playing bluegrass music.  “They were as good as any adult I had heard, absolutely top shelf”, says Dave.  Don had invited Ed to one of Dave’s shows.  “He was this geeky little kid, and he wouldn’t look you in the eyes, it was hilarious!” recalls Dave.  “I remember we were playing the music on stage, and I look down behind me at the mixing console, and there’s Ed; his head had completely disappeared inside the equipment rack, and he was looking at what was in the rack!”

Dave would call Ed when he needed a fiddler for a gig, or for recording tracks, through the years, and watched him steadily improve.  “I had the idea tucked in the back of my mind, that I wanted to form a band with him, and by the time he was 24 or 25, I said to myself, ‘yeah, he’s probably just about ready.’”   Denny Breau introduced Dave to Kevin O’Reilly (bassist for The Dave Rowe Trio) at a jam session.  Dave called him up the next day and asked him if he wanted to join a band.   Dave did not schedule any rehearsals with his new band – he scheduled a gig!  They booked themselves at the St. Patricks Day party at The Kerryman Pub in Saco.  Dave sent Ed and Kevin CDs with the songs they were to play and said “This is the set; learn these songs!”

“Anytime you take three half-way decent musicians and put them in a room together with material that they have at least a rudimentary understanding of, they’re going to be flying with their hair on fire and by the seat of their pants, and that feels good!  So I knew that the energy was going to be there.  And we had a great night!  At the end of it, we scheduled our first rehearsal!” recalls Dave of that first engagement for his new band. “We had a great first couple of years, and we’re still dong OK!  We have four or five very strong markets across the country.”

On Saturday, May 10th, The Dave Rowe Trio will perform at the 4th annual tribute to Dave’s dad, entitled “Remembering Tom Rowe: a Celebration in Song.” at the Franco-American Heritage Center, 46 Cedar Street, Lewiston.  The show starts at 7:30 PM.  Other artists scheduled to perform include Schooner Fare, Denny Breau, Tim Sample, and Phil House.  The Master of Ceremonies is Robert Skogland, the Maine radio personality known as “The Humble Farmer”. 

The show is a benefit for the Maine Cancer Foundation.   “Every penny raised by the Maine Cancer Foundation stays in Maine” says Dave Rowe.  “The money either funds research or goes to agencies that help those people who are living with cancer.  It all stays local”.  Dave promises an upbeat concert, including some performances of Tom Rowe’s music.  “We want to drum up the spirits in a happy way” Dave says;  “This is a collection of performers that my dad would have liked to see get together; these are the people my dad would like to drink a beer with!”

So come out to support this great cause, and honor the spirit of Tom Rowe.  You can watch, and be a part of, the continuing, uniquely Maine story, whose current characters exist as the terrific folk band, The Dave Rowe Trio.