• Community man Willie French Lowery

Lauded Lumbee songwriter, artist, husband and father Willie French Lowery passed away May 3 at the age of 68. Lowery’s legacy includes more than 40 years worth of music, shaped by Indian, African, and European American traditions alike. His prolific career spanned psychedelic rock and children’s music, painting and stagecraft. Arguably, his most important career role, though, was as a cultural figurehead in the Lumbee tribe. An assistant curator at the North Carolina Museum of History and member of the Lumbee community, Jefferson Currie III calls Lowery a hero: “His entire career makes [us] proud. In some ways, he helped to nurture a stronger identity and sense of being among Lumbees. I think his legacy will continue for a long time.”

For some time now, Brendan Greaves and Jason Perlmutter of the Paradise of Bachelors label have been trying to ensure exactly that. Working with Lowery and his wife, Malinda Maynor Lowery, the label has pursued reissues of his older releases. Their first is the eponymous record by Plant and See, Lowery’s short-lived ‘70s psych rock band; it will be released this July. “What’s really fascinating about him,” says Greaves, “is that he put out these two LPs that are classic to the canon of psychedelic music, if little known beyond that, but then turned his career into a vehicle for articulating American Indian identity and politics."

Born in 1944 in Robeson County, N.C., Lowery took a unique path. As a young man, he played in a traveling carnival, served as the bandleader for former Drifter Clyde McPhatter, wrote commercial jingles, and fronted both Plant and See and Lumbee. In those psychedelic rock bands, Lowery honed a southern swamp-psych sound. The latter group’s only recording, Overdose, drew the attention of The Allman Bros, who took the group on the road as an opening act. Though Lumbee swiftly disbanded, their recording has since become a highly collectible psychedelic classic.

After brushes with success, Lowery decided to trade the prospect of rock ’n’ roll fame for more community-focused work. He spent much of the rest of his career making music and art that exalted the traditions of Lumbee culture. With an acoustic guitar and a gritty tenor, Lowery wrote more than 500 songs that range from blues to country to gospel. Notably, in 1976, he recorded a children’s folk album, Proud to be a Lumbee, which solidified his place as an icon in the Lumbee tribe. He also penned Strike at the Wind!, a popular, long-running outdoor drama about his ancestor, Henry Berry Lowery, a Robin Hood figure within the Lumbee community.

“He was an exceptionally gifted guitar player and singer. His music is an anthem for the Lumbee people,” says Dr. William Ferris, the Senior Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the American South. He often featured Lowery as a guest lecturer in his course on Southern Music. "He and his ancestors are forever associated with their voice in North Carolina.”

[Editor’s note: Matt Brown—a drummer with John Howie Jr. & the Rosewood Bluff, Stratocruiser, the Venables, Penny Prophets and many other local bands over the years—died of a heart attack last Wednesday afternoon. He was 42. Below, we have collected three remembrances from friends and bandmates of Brown. These entries have been edited by Grayson Currin and Peter Blackstock with permission. Howie originally posted his text in a different form on his Facebook account.]

• Photo courtesy of Yep Roc Records
• At center, John Howie Jr; at right, Matt Brown

By John Howie Jr.

As I was putting my son to bed this past Wednesday, a few hours after receiving the unbearably painful news about the passing of Matt Brown—my beloved friend and musical partner of almost 10 years—I received an e-mail from my buddy Jeff Hart reminding me of an incident a few years back.

My girlfriend Billie, my then-3-year-old son Dario and I were eating at Taco Bell. If you’ve never been to a restaurant with a 3-year-old, you might not understand what an undertaking it can be. All eyes were on Dario, all hands at the ready, when suddenly he started frantically trying to get down from his seat. Upon doing so, much to our horror, he began running across the restaurant, more excited than I think I have ever seen him. It was only when he began happily screaming, “IT’S MATT! IT’S MATT!” and jumping up and down and banging on the window that I realized what was happening: Matt Brown was going through the drive-through, and my son—like all of us—wanted to be near him.

I certainly couldn’t blame Dario for reacting the way he did. I wanted to do the same thing every time I saw Matt. Hell, I think Billie started banging on that window, too. Dario had been around Matt quite a bit. The Browns—Matt, his wonderful wife, Laura, and his beautiful daughters, Ella and Lila—had been kind enough to have Dario over for a few sleepovers, and Dario was clearly smitten with Matt.

Of course, Dario’s father was also smitten with Matt, and had been since the first time we had played music together at Neal Spaulding’s house in 2002, after being introduced by my friend Phil Venable. I’ll never forget breaking out a then-brand-new song and realizing, once Matt started playing along, that I had finally found the drummer I’d been searching for. I had played with some outstanding drummers, but Matt was different; Matt was a lifer. I immediately knew he was the only drummer I’d want to play with from then on out.

Over time, I would realize that aside from being the most gifted musician I’d ever met, Matt had also found time to be a wonderful husband, and a shining example of fatherhood from whom I learned an inestimable amount about parenting. He also became one of the best friends I’d ever had, never wavering in his support and innate understanding of my music and me as a person.

Paul Westerberg once sang, “It’s hard to say goodbye, so I’ll say … so long,” but I was never very good at saying either to Matt, and I only really tried once. When the Two Dollar Pistols were making what would be our last album, 2007’s Here Tomorrow Gone Today, things in our collective world got confusing. Looking back, I think it’s become clear to all of us that it was time to break up the band, but at the time it just seemed like confusion reigned. Nothing was working right, and surely someone must be to blame? For some reason, Matt took the brunt of that, and I asked him to part ways with the group.

I cried every day after we had that conversation, but Matt continued to send all of us goofy e-mails, like nothing had happened. We played with another drummer, a very wonderful local drummer, but my heart wasn’t in it, and I knew after about five seconds that I was lost without Matt. When I called him asking if we could meet at Armadillo Grill to discuss things, he agreed. I begged him to rejoin the group, and though plenty of lesser men—perhaps myself included—probably would have held that incident over someone’s head, Matt never did. I spent the rest of our time together telling him how much I appreciated his presence.

Later this year, Matt and I would have celebrated 10 glorious years together, what I’d hoped would be merely the beginning of a decades-long musical journey with my beautiful friend, the amazing drummer who never gave up on me or my songs. A second album with my current band, the Rosewood Bluff, was being planned when we met for practice this past Monday. I thought we’d be like Johnny Cash and his drummer W.S. Holland, ringing in our 40th anniversary of friendship and music as old men. Tragically, this was not to be.

“It’s hard to say goodbye, so I’ll say… so long”? I’m afraid I’m still not strong enough to do it. Instead, I’ll leave the last words for now in the hands of 5-year-old Dario Ingram Howie, who asked me yesterday when I was dropping him off at school if I was crying— something I’ve been doing virtually nonstop since Wednesday— because I missed Matt. When I replied that I was, Dario simply said, “It’s OK, Daddy, I miss Matt, too. Everybody misses Matt. Everybody loves Matt.”

• Image courtesy of Brian Hill
• Drummer Matt Brown with his family

By Mike Nicholson

In late 2004, my rock band Stratocruiser suddenly needed a drummer. Not looking forward to another audition process, Matt Brown came to us through a recommendation from our bassist. We hit the ground running. He not only drummed in that band but he also became the go-to session player for my recording studio, Vista Point in Pittsboro. Matt played on our CDs and a lot of other songs on a lot of other releases. His session prowess was unmatched: He could handle virtually any style and get his parts together and recorded with efficiency. From smooth urban pop to gutbucket metal, Matt could play it all. He elevated my music to heights I could not have reached on my own.

In addition to his studio chops, Matt was an inventive, creative, and rock-solid live drummer. I played with Matt on the road not only with Stratocruiser but on tour as part of Grant Hart's band and in support act The Venables early last year. We also played together in The Kinksmen, The Banana Seats and Meltzer-Hart.
Matt's presence in the van made some grueling East Coast road trips for Stratocruiser bearable. Matt's joie d' vivre amused and entertained us on those journeys. A natural prankster with boundless energy, Matt's road tales could fill a book of their own.

But Matt was not a juvenile goofball in the Keith Moon mold. Smart, musically gifted and virtually without the self-centered egomania that plagues many musicians, Matt's humility kept us grounded and focused. He was a devoted family man with two young daughters and a supportive, understanding wife. Matt juggled playing simultaneously in maybe 10 active bands at any given time.

Matt Brown lived to play. Sometimes he would make good money with bands like Two Dollar Pistols; other times, he'd be lucky to bring home five bucks from a bar gig in Greensboro that went until 4 a.m. None of this mattered; playing drums (or bass or, heck, washboard or maracas) was enough for Matt.

On April 25th, we lost Matt suddenly and unexpectedly. He poured absolutely everything he had into his 42 years, 10 months and 26 days. It's hard to believe that he will not be behind me, pounding his kit to splinters at some seedy rock dive before stopping somewhere together for a soda on the way home to our sleeping families.

Great musical comrades are hard to find, but good friends are harder to find. Matt was both and more. He was family. Rest in peace, brother.

click to enlarge

• Steely Dan: Thanks for the score, guys.

Steely Dan was my kudzu band, growing with me as I grew up in the ’70s and always seeming to find ways to wrap itself around parts of my life. Of course, growing up in a small town in upstate New York— a suburb of a suburb of Binghamton, with a population of about 500 and exactly zero stoplights—I had no idea what kudzu was.

But I’m sure Steely Dan’s Walter Becker and Donald Fagen knew. Those guys knew everything. This was a case of opposites attracting: Becker and Fagen were edgy, worldly, wise geniuses, and I was a naïve dumbass who was as complicated as an episode of Murder She Wrote. And their music took me places—from Boston, Biscayne Bay and Barrytown to William & Mary, Haiti, Vegas and even the occasional place where kudzu grew like, well, kudzu.

I loved the tunes, too. Still do, as they maintain the power to transport me back to a terrain where music and adolescence conspired to form indelible memories. So, Steely Dan, by my years...

AGE 12

The entry point, as I was in a phase where I’d dutifully record Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 in a spiral-bound notebook every Sunday night, and both “Do It Again” and “Reelin’ in the Years” cracked Casey’s list. I knew nothing about Steely Dan—it could have been just a guy, not a band—but both songs made an impression, especially the latter. It was as catchy as it was impossible to sing along with. That fella Dan sure could sing briskly.