Suffolk musician featured on NPR

BLACKSBURG – Folk musician Nathan Bowles isn’t forgetting his Suffolk roots.

Indeed, Bowles’ second solo album, “Nansemond,” set to hit the stands on Nov. 18, pays homage to his childhood in northern Suffolk’s Sleepy Lake community. The hauntingly melodic, original banjo tunes on the album meander through the landscape of Bowles’ youth, with titles that include “Sleepy Lake Bike Club,” “Chuckatuck,” and “Sleepy Lake Tire Swing.”

“I don’t go back physically to Suffolk all that often,” said Bowles, 30, a professional musician and adjunct English professor at Virginia Tech. Bowles is taking this semester off to promote his record and tour with two bands, the Black Twig Pickers and Pelt, and musician Steve Gunn, around the United States and United Kingdom.

“The tunes and sounds (on “Nansemond”) reflect how I feel about my childhood,” Bowles said. “It seems like a faraway time and place, almost dreamlike, at times.”

Bowles, who graduated from Nansemond River High School in 2001, grew up with music. Beginning at age 5, he took classical piano lessons for 11 years before switching over to drums. As a teenager, he played punk tunes in garage bands.

But it wasn’t until after 2001, when he moved to Blacksburg to attend Virginia Tech, that he found his niche in Appalachian folk music and improvisation.

“It’s raw … and appeals to my sensibilities in a way that traditional music never has,” Bowles said. Despite having never played a string instrument, Bowles began experimenting with the banjo in 2007 while performing with the Black Twig Pickers.

Bowles says his great love is still percussion. But on both of his solo albums, “Nansemond” and 2012’s “A Bottle, A Buckeye,” Bowles’ performance has revolved around the five-string banjo, played in the rhythmic clawhammer style.

“Bowles … carves out his own corner of this clawhammer-banjo-based music and takes a portal through time while keeping one foot in the ether,” said Lars Gotrich, a music critic with NPR’s All Songs Considered. Gotrich reviewed Bowles’ Nansemond album on Aug. 27 and included a preview to the track, “Chuckatuck.”

“Built on a hypnotic banjo melody that drones more like a sitar than something out of Appalachia, ‘Chuckatuck’ sounds like something recorded in a bunker and long since forgotten,” Gotrich said. “There are muffled shuffles throughout, as if a woodland creature overhead had become irresistibly drawn to the percussive plucks.”

Don’t expect the recorded version of the tracks on “Nansemond” to sound the same if you ever have the opportunity to see Bowles perform live.

“I don’t read music and none of these songs are written down,” Bowles said. “The song is a template that you improvise and play around with every time you perform … so it’s a little different every time. It’s fun for us … and I hope people enjoy it.”

Bowles hopes to a book a performance at a local venue later this year.

Use this link to check out ‘Chuckatuck’ on NPR’s All Songs Considered: www.npr.org/blags/all-songs/2014/08/27/34190918/vikings-choice-nathan-bowles-chuckatuck.