A genial tour guide, Peter Rowan steered a Caffe Lena-full of fans Sunday through his New England childhood – “singing to the stars, listening to the ocean” as he nostalgically recalled – then in dusty-road rambles through the west. Rowan mapped those wanderings decades ago, in distinguished company.

When Rowan, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and John Kahn formed Old & In the Way, everybody was in their 30s and 40s. 

Now 81, Rowan remains among the last living links to bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe, like his somewhat spryer contemporary Buddy Guy (87) with Chicago blues inventor Muddy Waters. “Still standing” begs the question how well can they still sing and play?

Rowan’s cozy, familiar tunes have worn well, and so has his easy-chair voice and finger-picking guitar style, despite a bandage on his fretting hand insult finger. He seldom stretched far on Sunday, though he hit a falsetto yodel at times, mainly in the more relaxed second of two sets. Banjoist (first set) and guitarist (second set) Max Wareham and bassist Chris Sartori, both tasteful and tidy, flanked him, coloring inside the lines.

Some in the packed house seemed to sport as many miles on the clock as Rowan himself, calling out for favorite songs, whooping in delight when Rowan responded. Singer-songwriter Carolyn Shapiro at the next table seemed among the youngest fans there. A quick T-shirt scan: Grateful Dead, Rowan himself, Sirsy, Doc Watson, every acoustic music festival around and some bright Alohas. Soundman Joe Deuel told me Rowan first played the Caffe when Lena herself ran the show.

Max Wareham, left, Peter Rowan, and Chris Sartori

Rowan started at the top: “Panama Red” from “Old & In the Way” and a huge hit for the Dead-adjacent New Riders of the Purple Sage. It wrapped around the even more venerable “Freight Train.” Then the music hit the road with a similar one-two of “The Hobo Song” and “Lonesome LA Cowboy.” Some sang along; Rowan didn’t need to invite anybody, and he flexed his falsetto a bit in a Doc Watson tribute, then made easy octave leaps in the next tune before wrapping with “Cold Rain and Snow” from the Dead’s 1967 debut. 

Max Warham, banjo

Second-set songs stretched longer, from four or five minutes in the first set, sometimes past 10 in the second. They sang and played harder. If the first set was warm-up, it worked. 

Max Wareham, guitar

Wareham switched from banjo to electric guitar and Rowan played slide to start in a bouncy, bluesy “Motherless Children.” They pressed even harder in the gospel-y “Walking in Jerusalem,” a strong highlight, before the thoughtful “I Am a Pilgrim and a Stranger.” In “Tumbleweed,” Rowan and Wareham played a tight duo break and Sartori hit his best bass solo of the night. 

Chris Sartori

Chris Sartori, right, bows his bass

Later, they revisited this theme of Native American respect/lamentation in “Land of the Navajo.” Rowan spoke a wistful verse here, then Sartori’s arco bass underlined the beat and Rowan played his voice from gruff rumble to high yodel and desolate cry in his most expressive vocal of the show.

“Fetch Wood Carry Water” sailed on easy-reggae funk, and the grooves of the second set packed more muscle than earlier, even the slow waltz “Mississippi Moon” that closed in massed fingersnaps Rowan led.

The show felt comfortably loose, Rowan organizing it, if that’s the word, song by song and nodding to cue the solos, or calmly navigating them himself with deliberate, sparse fingerpicking.

The Songs

Panama Red

Freight Train

Panama Red (reprise)

The Hobo song

Lonesome LA Cowboy

It’s a Doc Watson Morning, Guitar Picking Kind of Day

Unknown (Was busier with camera than notebook here, sure I’d remember. Wrong.)

Cold Rain and Snow

Motherless Children

Walking in Jerusalem (Just Like John)

I Am a Pilgrim and a Stranger

River of Stone

Tumbleweed

Mississippi Moon

Fetch Wood Carry Water

Land of the Navajo

Moonlight Midnight