Press

Well worth the wait: Long reluctant about releasing a CD, Ralston Bowles relents

Sunday, November 30, 2003
By John Sinkevics
The Grand Rapids Press

Ralston. Hard to find many musicians in Grand Rapids' folk and rock scene who don't know Ralston Bowles by his first name, who don't recognize his prodigious songwriting talent, who haven't wondered when this Dylan-esque singer would finally release his first studio album.

After performing regularly in West Michigan for more than three decades, Bowles' much-anticipated recording debut, "Carwreck Conversations," goes public on Monday at a CD-release party at Frederik Meijer Gardens.

What took him so long?

"I just never really felt the need to (record an album)," said Bowles, of Grand Rapids, who began performing at coffeehouses and folk festivals in the late 60s. "It was all about the live music.

"And all the stories I ever heard about music as an industry, it wasn't nearly as organic as the music was. It's a little ominous. It was mostly just the fear of locking down something (a version of a song) so that's the way it always is."

But a friend convinced Bowles -- who after some coaxing will concede he's "approaching 50" -- to view a recording as nothing more than a photograph.

"You take photographs throughout your life to catalogue that along the way," said Bowles, who drops his surname and plugs himself simply as Ralston at concerts and on his Web site.

Still, he admits to being nervous about release of his first musical snapshot, which contains 10 original songs. "Having a record come out is like having 10 daughters get married on the same day," said Bowles, who works as marketing coordinator for Citadel Broadcasting Company, which owns four Grand Rapids radio stations. "You send them out in the world, and they might come back to visit occasionally."

Bowles needn't fret: Those who've heard advance copies of the disc insist it's worth the wait.

"Carwreck Conversations" is chock-full of the smart and catchy, rock- and folk-tinged material that has long made Bowles a coveted performer throughout the Midwest. Ranging from Lyle Lovett-like tracks to the striking, unforgettable folk-rock hook that drives "James Dean," the CD was recorded earlier this year at Camp David studio in Los Angeles with producer Marvin Etzioni and engineer David Vaught at the helm. A singer-songwriter, producer and founder of the band Lone Justice, Etzioni has worked in the past with the Counting Crows, Peter Case and Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Word about Bowles -- selected as a finalist in the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas earlier this year -- has spread in recent months: Noted producer T-Bone Burnett considered using Bowles' "What Kind of Friend" and "Draper" in the soundtrack for "Cold Mountain," an upcoming feature film starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger.

Even if the songs don't make the final cut, Bowles remains flattered that the tracks, thanks to Etzioni and others, ended up in the hands of Burnett, one of the music industry's most respected producers. His tunes were considered for the soundtrack along with material by Elvis Costello and Sting.

Bowles has long rubbed elbows with some highly vaunted artists. The singer-songwriter actually opened for T-Bone Burnett at a 1999 Calvin College show, and over the years he's shared concert bills with Shawn Colvin, Hothouse Flowers, Chuck Brodsky and Peter Mulvey.

For Bowles, who's married and has three children, none of that matters as much as the music itself or as much as shaping the best songs that he can for his audiences.

"It's about the song. The song is really the focal point," he said. "We're sort of just conduits. A good song can take people places and tell people things that they'd never experience any other way. If the song is good, there's not much you can do to kill it."