Grace Bowers: Have Guitar, Will Travel

variety.com:

A.D. Amorosi Everyone loves a guitar hero. And young talents who seem to have arrived fully formed, too. So there’s a lot of love in the room for Grace Bowers, the 18-year-old who this year became the fretboard’s new best friend.

A player since age 9, Bowers made a name for her music on Instagram and YouTube during the pandemic, but really came into her own in August with her swaggering, blues- and funk-filled debut, “Wine on Venus.” The album’s gutsy rhythms, taut solos and soulful, self-penned songs offer proof positive of her six-string mastery.“I’m very driven at the things that I want,” says Bowers from her Nashville home. “And, I’m extremely hard-working.” Bowers is quick to state that music didn’t come naturally.

At first. “I tried lots of hobbies at 9, and got kicked out of them all,” she says. “I was bad at sports. The guitar looked cool.” Jamming on an off-brand acoustic purchased by her mom, Bowers fell in love with the guitar’s crunch listening to the radio in the family car. “My favorite stations, then, were Ozzy’s Boneyard and Hair Nation – cheesy metal – which is embarrassing now as I don’t play anything like that,” she says, laughing.

Then Bowers landed on a station playing B.B. King’s “Sweet Little Angel,” and found an emotive power more haunting than metal’s shredding. “He struck a chord inside me.