Peter Rowan “Tales of the Free Mexican Air Force”

A career reflection from one of the key names in americana music, with support from collaborators old and new.

Peter Rowan was americana before it was even a thing. Around 1970, he played with jazz-influenced roots rock band Seatrain, followed that with Old And In The Way with Jerry Garcia and Dave Grisman and has subsequently released albums that circled around Bluegrass, adding elements of other roots music as the mood and the collaborators demanded.

“Tales of the Free Mexican Air Force” pulls on many of the strings of his career but focuses on his musical relationship with Flaco Jimenez and Max Baca. The liner notes talk about how Rowan came to know them and their influence on his music.

The accordion played by Josh Baca is the dominant instrumental voice on the first song, ‘Mississippi California,’ a tale of the hope that inspires migrants to the USA. ‘Oh Liberty’, which follows, keeps the theme going, with an almost Springsteen-esque lyric that states, “We believe in the rights of man.” With various members of Los Texmaniacs playing on the album, it has the dusty desert feel across all of the songs, new and old, with the key song being ‘Midnight Moonlight’, which has been a constant throughout his career. He says of its creation: “I left playing with Seatrain in 1970. My last show was in San Antonio, Texas. I spent the following days wandering the streets of the old town, meeting people, soaking up the music, the food, the energy; The Alamo at sunrise, churches filled with the life-like Madonnas; That’s when I wrote ‘Midnight Moonlight.’ The song is about finding hope, even in despair, inspired by those warm nights and bright mornings in Old San Antone.” While that song is buried towards the end of the album, its influence and the thought behind its creation is all across the record.

As are other aspects of his career. ‘Sunset Eyes’ has the Hank Williams or Carl Perkins sound of his band, Big Twang Theory. The rocking ‘Alligator Alley’ could have come off his “Texican Badman” album. They are connected into a thematic whole by the Acordeón of Flaco Jimenez, Max Baca’s Bajo-sexto (a Mexican 12-string guitar), which never lets you forget how close to the border we are in spirit and intention.

The Buddy Holly-meets-Rolling Stones sound of ‘Valentina‘ gives us one of the best of the newer songs featured here. He follows that with a trio of more traditionally styled songs sung mostly in Mexican Spanish. Next are the two classic songs ‘Free Mexican Air Force’ and the aforementioned ‘Midnight Moonlight’, which are as strong as ever, especially the de facto album title track.

‘I’m Gonna Love You Like There’s No Tomorrow’ is a country prison ballad in the Johnny Cash tradition. The two brief pieces which close the album come across as the results of a late-night jam, with the 40 seconds of ‘Los Peregrinos’ fading in and out to give us just a taste of the session.

Rowan says that the album is “both a celebration and a homage to the musical culture that inspired ‘Midnight Moonlight’ and the kind people who have given me hope for the future.” In a time when hope and optimism seem to be commodities sadly lacking for many in the USA, this is a vital album, and proof that the thoughtful views of figures like Peter Rowan are vital to exploring what is still best about the country. His press actually sums “Tales of the Free Mexican Air Force” up very nicely. “The album is both a musical reunion and a multi-generational celebration. It’s a powerful listen—joyful, defiant, poetic—and it couldn’t have arrived at a more resonant moment in our national story.”