Chauncey Bowers
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Chauncey Bowers

Alhambra, California, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2014 | SELF

Alhambra, California, United States | SELF
Established on Jan, 2014
Band Americana Singer/Songwriter

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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"Chauncey Bowers"

Chauncey Bowers' new album, Rumors of Reason, features a mix of humor, sorrow, and sage advice from one of the most original writers on the L.A. songwriter scene. The generous 15-song set features Chauncey's terrific world weary vocals and rhythm guitar with able assistance from a number of fine musicians and singers. Guitarist Ed Tree and vocalist Lisa Turner are particular stand outs. A terrific mix of American music including blues, gospel, folk and rock - I hear a faint touch of Springsteen on Wild And Wooly. Relax, it's a good thing. But the real stars here are Bowers' lyrics. Worth repeated listens for a long time to come. - Bill Berry's Songwriter's Square


Discography

Still working on that hot first release.

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Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

If ever a movie was made about the life of Chauncey Bowers, Christopher Lloyd would surely get the part. Somewhere between Lloyds signature roles as the eccentric Emmett Doc Brown in Back to the Future and the flighty Reverend Jim Ignatowski from the hit TV series Taxi lies the role of Chauncey Bowers a man who began his unpredictable career as an assistant repo man, then transitioned to a Harvard-educated Ph.D. in cellular biology, and now defies laws of common sense as he dissects the music world. His questioning, wide-horizon worldview and barbed humor light up the newly released Rumors of Reason and will do the same for the Coffee Gallery on June 26.  
 
Rumors of Reason is Chaunceys first full-length album, though he has been impressing peers on Los Angeles songwriter circuit for years. Its fifteen tracks showcase his penchant for taking listeners through the bizarre journeys of everyday life, with twists and turns as abrupt as the good Reverend Jims non sequiturs. Take, for example, Something to Cry About, and its murderous protagonist: You hear something funny but its all in your head/ If those voices stop talking/ Does that mean youre dead? Or the dead mans hindsight in Stupid and Bloody: When I was born, I was stupid and bloody/ Crying with the shock of seeing the world.  Or the folk-rock groove of God Bless Your Children that lulls listeners into a false sense of comfort as its aging protagonist vows: I believe in the raging righteous/ And I believe theres love in soldiers and whores/ But my disease it throws me down and holds me fast/ And I dont want this struggle to last.
 
Lest that sound like a heavy load of death and darkness, check out the remarkably agile horn that stalks Chaunceys alley-haunting character through Stray Trombone, and the tough-luck philosophy spiking  Last Thing I Remember over producer Ed Trees bluesy slide guitar. He pivots often from the twisted to the tender, as with the melancholy Anything Could Happen and its graceful plea to Try and be happy/ Just try and sing, dressed in Teresa James dusky harmony and Dale La Dukes simple keyboard melody.
 
Chauncey crafts his own alternate universe in these fifteen songs, complete with movie-ready characters and plotlines and a firmly grounded skepticism. He still holds fast to a few illusions, like his insistence that the repo man he worked for was legit not just a guy stealing cars with a 16-year-old accomplice. The absolute reality of that fact we may never know, but with Rumors of Reason, we can at least come along for an exhilarating ride. Like that of a hot-wired, freshly repossessed car.


Band Members