The Dave Rowe Trio is a high-energy musical freight train that blends in-your-face, three-part harmony with hot guitar pickin’, jaw-dropping fiddling, and dry Downeast wit. The result is a show that grabs an audience and makes them hold on for dear life through the final chord of the encore.

The band started soon after Dave Rowe’s father passed away in 2004. His dad, Tom, was a founding member of the revered folk group, Schooner Fare, and was also Dave’s bandmate in the roots band, Turkey Hollow. Needing some uplifting and a new direction, Dave asked Kevin O’Reilly and Ed Howe to join him to become the Dave Rowe Trio. They held their first rehearsal on St. Patrick’s Day in 2004 in front of a live audience. After this trial by fire, the trio started on a path of CD production and live shows all over the country, recording five critically-acclaimed CDs in three years and leaving audiences from Maine to Milwaukee gasping for air. At the same time, the boys found themselves performing on stage with some of the brightest stars in folk and acoustic music including Christine Lavin, Tommy Makem, Noel Paul Stookey, The Shaw Brothers, Bill Morrissey, The Nields, Gordon Bok, Tom Paxton, and Schooner Fare.

Dave Rowe began performing professionally with the Makem Brothers (Tommy Makem’s sons) when he was 15 years old. Since then he has toured both as a solo artist and with many highly regarded acts including both Rowe by Rowe and Turkey Hollow (with his dad), Don Campbell, Murphy’s Lawbreakers, Maine’s own local-legendary Silver Dollar Band, and now the Dave Rowe Trio.

Edward Howe is a fiddle wünderkind who started to play the instrument at the tender age of 4. With his younger brother, Thomas (now an airline pilot), and his engineer father, John, he performed bluegrass shows all over his home state of Maine with the Howe family band. Later he joined rising star, Lissa Schneckenburger, in a band called Wake the Neighbors. Ed became the driving force behind the band after Lissa left to go to college and continued to play with WTN until he joined the Dave Rowe Trio in 2004.

Kevin O’Reilly spent his formative years in local Maine rock bands including many with names unfit for publication (one of the tamest was Love Cactus) — suffice it to say he had a lot of fun. After several years of trying to make a go of it in rock, Kevin reconciled himself to the fact that there was more money and fame to be gotten as a high school guidance counselor. So he played at jam sessions and did a few pickup gigs here and there for several years. It was at a jam session near his home that Dave first heard him play. Two weeks later, the Dave Rowe Trio began.

With their varied experiences and influences coming to bear, it is easy to see why this trio is a force to be reckoned with. One reviewer recently observed “...they are a three-legged Hot Rize with a musical accent, thanks to the superior songwriting and lead voice of Rowe, not to mention the excellent musicianship of all three legs” (Frank Gutch, Jr., Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange). Another referenced the connection to Dave’s dad and Schooner Fare by saying, “In their youthful zest, pulsing melodicism, and pedal-to-the-metal energy, Rowe and his pals prove there’s nothing retro about carrying on the family name” (Scott Alarik, Boston Globe). This trio is a fresh, welcome voice in folk and acoustic circles, perhaps best summarized by the comment recently left on the trio’s MySpace page by fellow Maine musician and songwriter, David Phillips, “You guys are perhaps the best live act I've ever seen, very fun!!”

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The Dave Rowe Trio is a high-energy musical freight train that blends in-your-face, three-part harmony with hot guitar pickin’, jaw-dropping fiddling, and dry Downeast wit. The result is a show that grabs an audience and makes them hold on for dear life through the final chord of the encore.

The band started soon after Dave Rowe’s father passed away in 2004. His dad, Tom, was a founding member of the revered folk group, Schooner Fare, and was also Dave’s bandmate in the roots band, Turke... (read more)