Watch: Grace Bowers Featured on CBS Mornings
Yesterday, March 5, Grace Bowers was prominently featured in a CBS Mornings segment titled “Girls & Guitars.” This program, aimed to highlight a surge in new female voices undoing the instrument’s traditionally male-coded lineage, figured Bowers as the figurehead for a new generation of women in rock. In her interview, Bowers divulged her influences, troubling experiences, and aspirations in music.
To introduce the teenage instrumental prodigy, host Vladimir Duthries explained her sudden rush of exposure via Reddit during the pandemic. “One day, all of a sudden, 10,000 people started watching me,” Bowers recalled of her first taste of recognition. “And people liked it–and that surprised me.” This moment came shortly after the largely self-taught guitarist had begun learning the instrument in the style of early influence Slash of Guns N’ Roses, propelling her to grace such esteemed stages at Newport Folk Festival and CBS’ New Year’s Eve Live! Broadcast.
But her journey did not come without resistance. Bowers remembers one instance in Nashville, Tenn. when a sound tech attempted to instruct the artist how to plug in her instrument. She reflects on the experience and its dreaded prevalence in the segment, testifying to a familiarity with “other female musicians in Nashville that have the same exact story as me, and it’s because people look at them and underestimate them just for being a girl.” Despite this pernicious trend, the show depicted a turning tide, citing a 2018 study conducted by Fender that determined that women account for 50% of all beginner and aspirational guitar players.
As the story moved towards its conclusion, it highlighted a number of current pathbreakers like St. Vincent, Brittany Howard, boygenius and H.E.R. that have paved the way for new sounds and perspectives in rock. Bowers parted by looking forward to her musical future and the type of performance she’d like to cultivate. “The type of band I want to put together is more like Sly & The Family Stone, where it’s like a huge, just soul band type of thing,” she imagined, encouraging a high-five from Duthries, “The band’s not one person, it’s a unit. There’s lots of artists who are focused on one person, which is fine, and I love that, but it’s not what I want to do. I want to make a band.”
Bowers will perform next at The Underdog in Nashville, Tenn., tonight before taking the stage at Willie Nelson’s highly anticipated Luck Reunion 2024 on March 14. For tickets and more information on the artist’s upcoming engagements, visit gracebowers.com/shows. Watch Bowers on CBS Mornings here.
