I was born Bobby Darrell Jones on May 22, 1936, I started my musical career at a very early age. Actually, according to my mother, Mattie Lee, it started while she was carrying me in her stomach. My dad, Jesse, and my oldest brother, Jack, played a lot of music together. Dad was an old time fiddler and Jack was what was then called, "a second guitar player" (rhythm guitar) and as they and any number of their musician friends would get together to play music, mom said that she could feel me kickin’ to the time of the music inside her.

As far as I can remember, my actual playing experience began around 3 or 4 years old. I wanted very much to play guitar like my brother, but my little hands could not reach around the guitar neck. So, dad rigged up one of the old flattop guitars with a raised nut, tuned it to E major, gave me a flat pick and a Case knife and my "steel guitar" career took off. Even though I’m fast approaching 68 years, I can remember it as though it was yesterday. I’ll tell ya’ this,,,,no kid on earth could have had more fun or be any happier than I was growing up with all of that around me.

We were also a church going family and mom played piano and mostly an old pump organ for all the church services and functions. One of my main jobs until I was about 5 or 6 was to sit under mom and push those two pedals that gave air to the organ. Believe it or not, that was fun too.

We had an old hand crank real Victrola that we played records on and there was plenty of songs that had a particular sound in them that really caught my attention. My dad and brother told me it was a steel guitar or as they were called back then, "a Hawaiian steel guitar".

I guess I was about 6 and one day my dad brought home a six string Ohau lap steel and a matching amplifier with a little 6 or 8 inch speaker in it.. The guitar had a screw-on cord that plugged into the amp and before you knew it, I was keeping all the neighbors as well as mom and dad awake or irritated with some of the awfulest sounds you could imagine. But, to me they were straight from Heaven.

Dad took me downtown to see some of the shows at the Houston Auditorium and I got to see a lot of the "real steel guitar" players and met quiet a few of them. You can’t imagine how I dreamed of having a guitar like theirs and doing what they were doing. It’s about all I could think about.

Then one day my dad took me to Parker Music Company and showed me a double neck 6 string Ohau. It was kind of a light brown mother of pearl color and I walked out of that music store a little later with it under my arms….grinning from ear to ear.

A few years later, around ’49 or ’50, Fender guitars came on the scene and I worked all summer long loading and stacking hay bails, saved every penny I could and with some help from my dad and brothers finally got enough money together to get a double neck 8 and a big Fender amp that had two 10 inch speakers. Man, I was in hog heaven. A little later they came out with the Fender "Pro" that had one 15 inch speaker in it and I worked out a trade with Red Novac and Herby Remington to get one. Then came the Fender reverb and it just didn’t get any better than that. Herby gave me a few pointers and lessons and introduced me to even more steel players and musicians and helped me land a few "gigs". "Gigs",,,,,man that was real pro lingo to my corncob ears. You couldn’t touch me with a 10 foot pole! I did the usual sports and other things that a growing kid did in those days, but my mind and heart was always on playing that guitar.

While I was a senior in high school, Bob Wills located for a short period in Houston, "home baseing" out of a club called The Paladium.

I had been working with bands and guys like Floyd Tillman, Smilin’ Jerry Jerico, Leon Payne, Benny Leaders, Biff Collie and a young man named Tommy Sands among many others and Herby took me out to see and meet Mr. Wills and the Texas Playboys. Their steel player had just up and quit and they were looking for a steel player. I auditioned that Sunday afternoon and Bob called for "Steel Guitar Rag" and began to introduce me. He said something like,,,"folks, here’s Bobby ------, he couldn’t remember my last name and I believe it was Eldon that hollered to him,,,,Bowman. He then introduced me as Bobby Bowman playing the "Steel Guitar Rag" and that’s how I got my name,,,Bobby Bowman. Herby, because I was so nervous, had agreed to set up beside me,,,just in case. Boy, was I ever glad that he did. He had taught me a reverse slant to do in part of the song and when I did the reverse slant, the bar just came out of my shaky left hand and went out across the dance floor. I did manage to get it back and finish the song to a standing ovation. I was so embarrassed and I know my face was as red as a neon sign.

I immediately quit school and had plans on being the steel guitar player for the Texas Playboys. We went to Oklahoma to play a couple of jobs and my dad drove up there from Houston and to make a long story short,,,brought me back home to finish school. I was pretty upset about it, but soon realized that it was the best thing for me. The name has stuck with me to this very day and because of it being similar to "Billy Bowman" really opened a lot of doors for me through the years.

I went on to play with a lot of different bands and stars or "wantabe" stars. I also joined the Army in 1960 and while stationed in Shreveport, Louisiana got to play a little and meet a lot of groups and steel players at the Louisiana Hay Ride. Then one night I went to the NCO club to see Hank Thompson and met Bert Rivira. He was playing a MSA D-10, I think, and gave me a phone number to call Tommy Morrell in Dallas. Before long I had me a D-10 MSA with 2 floor pedals on it and enough parts to make it an 8 and 4. I didn’t have much of an idea what to do with all those cables, pullies and whatever else Tommy and Danny Shields gave me. It didn’t come with a case so they just rolled every thing up in an old sheet and sent me on my way back to Shreveport after getting my $500. They also gave me a tube of glue to put the white plastic trim on the front apron along with a lot of screws and bolts and such to add whatever I came up with. I built that guitar kinda’ like you build a "shotgun house",,,,,one room (pedal/lever) at a time. I still use basically the same set up that I ended up with on that guitar. You’ve got to realize that there was not anybody around to show or tell me what I was supposed to do or a better way to do it than the way I did. I finally met and became friends with a fellow during that time that did help me a lot and his name was T. J. Seaman. I also met another fellow there in Shreveport named Tillman Franks, who was a bass player/manager/producer of sorts and he helped find me bands and singers to play with, one being a guy named David Houston. Horace Logan of KWKH radio also helped me out some along with another DJ/singer named Nat Stuckey.

When I got out of the service I moved back to Houston for a short while working with a guy named Larry Butler and another local band that had Frenchy Burke playing fiddle in it. There was also a singer I worked for in there named Benny Barns for a while. I met Albert Talley at a job we did and he turned me on to a fellow in Dallas who had the number 1 record at that time, "Hello Trouble", named Orville Couch. I stayed with Orville nearly 3 years,,, all on the road. During this time is when I became close friends with Maurice Anderson and Bud Carter and renewing my friendship with Tommy Morrell and Danny Shields. I ended up going to work for MSA and was there for a few years. Coming off the road with Couch and the "Trouble Makers" I worked clubs around Dallas and Ft. Worth and freelanced a lot with some of the bigger names in the business. I also did a lot of session work during this period. Somewhere in there I moved back to Houston, probably around 1971. I went back to work with Larry Butler and then, through Frenchy had my last road gig with a guy named Johnny Bush. It only lasted for about three weeks, but man, what a whirlwind experience! I came back to Houston and teamed up with a guy named Stan Randall and we put together a band called "Hard Country" and kept that together for about 9 or 10 years. Then Stan and I went with a new group, working for a local constable named C. R. Davis and we called ourselves "The Texas Throwdown Band" and we stayed together for about 20 years.

During this time I must have done a thousand or more recording sessions in and around Houston.

About 8 years ago I teamed up with a fellow named Doug Boggs. The band is called "The Cowboy Jazz Band" and we’re still pickin’ and grinnin’.

During all the years from about 1964 till now I had always wanted to do an album of my own. I started probably 10 different times and never did finish a complete album of my own. Had a few featured songs on a number of albums over the years and finally around October of 2003 decided to actually do my own thing. They are now called a CD and I named mine "Pure and Simple" because that’s the way I play.

I actually started building and working on steels when I was about 10 years old. I took some pieces of my dads’ prize cabinet lumber and tried to make me a single neck 8 guitar. Dad was not very happy that I took some of his lumber without asking him first. I got in way over my head and never did finish it. However, I was always tinkering around with the steels that I did have and would occasionally try to fix problems on my friends’ guitars. I got into the real world of working on and building guitars through Tommy Morrell and Bud Carter when I went with MSA.

There are so many people to thank and that I appreciate who have helped, looked after me, been a shoulder to lean on and just being a friend. We’re talking literally thousands of people. I have been so fortunate in my life time. I sincerely thank each and every one of you.

Well, that’s kinda’ a lump sum of my musical career. There’s a lot that went on before, during, in between and after some of these stories. Mostly involving women,,,but I’ll leave that to another time. I have three grown sons and raised a passel of step children over the years. It’s been a good up and down ride and I don’t know if I’d change a thing about any of it. I’m married to a wonderful lady for the last 10 years. Her name is Toni and she gives me 100% of her devotion and support in all my endeavors. I guess it just goes to show that God has a way to give good things, even to the guys like me, who have really messed up a lot of things in his life. I truly hope and pray that I can do a little something for you to bring a little happiness in your life through my music and work.

May God bless,

BB

Bobby Bowman

April 30, 2004