Jason Fowler leaves audience wanting more

MORRISBURG – When a performer must return to the stage for not one but two encores following a standing ovation, it’s apparent that his audience has been overwhelmed.

At his January 30 evening performance at the Morrisburg Meeting Centre guitarist/singer/composer Jason Fowler was an clearly an unqualified hit. 

His dynamic show featured a mixture of blues and folk classics from the likes of Bruce Cockburn and Bob Dylan, and favourites by finger style guitarists like Chet Atkins. He balanced these pieces out with instrumental works, many of them original compositions by the artist himself.

“Our audience simply wouldn’t let him off the stage until he’d done at least two encores,” said Sandra Whitford, a member of the St. Lawrence Acoustic Stage which brought Fowler to Morrisburg. “It was a great evening.”

A classically trained guitarist who holds a degree from McGill University, Fowler has been on easily 100 recordings, and has toured extensively with tenor John McDermott. He is an artist very much in demand in Toronto and throughout Canada according to his friend and St. Lawerence  Stage board member, Derek Hunter.  Those fortunate enough to attend Fowler’s Morrisburg concert could see why.

Fowler described his voice in an earlier interview with The Leader as a “husky baritone,”  but Whitworth found his vocals a delight to hear. “I knew he was a great guitarist,” she said, “but I had no idea how good a singer he also was.”

At one point in the concert, Fowler did an amazing rendition of the Beatles classic, “And I Love Her,” inviting the audience to hum the melody along with him as he improvised the instrumentals.

The effect, according to Whitworth, was both “quiet and utterly beautiful.”

Earlier in the day, Jason Fowler held a small, special workshop for guitarists. Participants ranged from those who consider themselves really novices to those who are considerably more advanced.

Fowler’s teaching methods were unaffected and relaxed.

He discussed and demonstrated picking styles, fingering, anchoring, emphasis and ways to get rid of what he described as “muddiness” in sound. His advice was practical and real, not dogmatic, and he was supportive of the directions each guitarist hoped to travel in his music.

He made a key distinction between “playing” and “practicing” which hit home with the other musicians.

“Playing” is simply playing over what you already know,” he said, “and I call this type of playing ‘maintenance’. But if you want to get better, you have to practice. You have to play the music slowly, slowly, so that you never learn a piece with mistakes. If your preparation is sound, and you’ve only ever played a song correctly, then external forces -audiences, lights, disruptions-cannot throw you. There are no professional musicians in the world who will not tell you this.”

Marc Muir, a guitar teacher from Cornwall who attended the workshop, and later the evening show, summed up both experiences as “absolutely amazing.”

Jason Fowler has expressed an interest in returning to Morrisburg for another concert sometime in the future.

We should only be so lucky.