Grace Bowers, courtesy.

The next generation’s star of American rock, blues and funk guitar is a 17-year-old high school junior from the East Bay town of Danville.

Grace Bowers racked up tens of thousands of fans on social media during pandemic lockdowns—when she was just 12—showing off her rock and blues licks. That earned her a sponsorship by Gibson guitars, and eventually her parents made the decision to move her family to Nashville, where she practices for hours each day and plays nightly at bars and clubs that she’s not old enough to visit on her own.

“The moment I saw Slash on YouTube, I asked my mom to get me a guitar, and I dropped all these other hobbies,” Bowers said in a video call from her home in Nashville a day after returning from a short tour. “To everyone’s surprise, I just kind of stuck with it, and I fell in love with it.”

She now has her own band, recorded her debut album with John Osborne of the Brothers Osborne, has been praised by the likes of Dolly Parton, Margo Price and blues prodigy Christone Kingfish Ingram, shared the stage with Lainey Wilson, Lzzy Hale and Devon Allman (the latter at Ryman Auditorium) and has gotten an invite to play the Grand Ole Opry on her 18th birthday later this year.

Grace Bowers performs on New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash in Nashville on Dec. 31, 2023 Courtesy CBS.

The one thing she hasn’t gotten a chance to accomplish yet is a show in California—but that’s about to happen with a slot at BottleRock later this month, several festival night shows and a jaunt with Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett.

Not bad for a teen who said she struggled all through middle school (she attended Stone Valley in Danville), got kicked out of every other extracurricular activity she’s ever tried, from gymnastics and softball to Girl Scouts and boys flag football, and is mostly self-taught on guitar. Her parents encouraged her to try many things—she wanted to play football because her dad played at University of the Pacific in Stockton and San Jose State before turning pro and playing arena football—but she said neither he nor her mom were musical.

Her turning point came when she saw a video of Guns N’ Roses’ Slash soloing on YouTube when she was 9. She asked her mom to get her a guitar so she could emulate guitar gods online.

“It started out with hair metal—really, really cheesy hair metal,” Bowers said. “I was into Mötley Crüe and Winger and Cinderella. I loved all of that stuff. … There was no one to expose me to new stuff. That was all I knew for a couple of years.”

Without any music theory background, she taught herself to play their songs. By the time the pandemic arrived, she’d lock herself in her room to shred for hours on end. Then one day when she was 13, while in her mom’s car, she started flipping through radio stations and discovered B.B. King’s “Sweet Little Angel.”

“He starts out with three notes—and it hooked me from there on out,” she said. “Then, after I got really into the blues, I got more into funk and soul and all these other music genres. It did start with cheesy hair metal at first. It took me a bit to get here.”

Grace Bowers performs on New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash in Nashville on Dec. 31, 2023 Courtesy CBS.

With little else to do, Grace Bowers started streaming her practice sessions on Reddit, her primary social media platform at the time. She set up her phone, went live and began to jam. Soon, she’d have around 20,000 people watching her at a time.

Her success streaming her jam sessions was only part of the reason her parents moved her and her two younger brothers to Nashville. Another was to allow her brothers to pursue athletics as a career. First, they visited family friends there. Six weeks later they listed their house in Danville and made the move. Her dad now works in finance, and he could do that from anywhere. And because of her struggles in school (she said she didn’t have strong connections with any of her teachers or lasting positive experiences), her parents wanted a fresh start for her, too.

“It was like a spur of the moment decision. This was also during COVID, so we were just kind of over everything and wanted a change,” she said. “I was getting pretty into playing guitar at that time. … [Growing up in Danville] was quiet, and there wasn’t any music around me, at least not that I could find. … When we moved here, I’m surrounded by it, 24/7. I was playing for hours every single day just because I was so inspired.”

The hardest part of the move was leaving the rest of her family in the Bay Area, as well as her friends, Bowers said. But overall, the move was what her family needed. She said the schools in Nashville are better—for her brothers, at least. That’s because after attending school in person in her freshman year (she didn’t enjoy her experience there), her music career took off, and she switched to an online school. She’s now in her junior year.

Grace Bowers and the Hodge Podge, courtesy.

She built a band from the musicians she’s jammed with over the past three to four years—hence the name: Grace Bowers and The Hodge Podge. She views it as a living entity rather than a vehicle for her individual talents. She and her bandmates—drummer Brandon Combs, keyboardist Joshua Blaylock, singer Esther Okai-Tetteh and bassist Eric Fortaleza—are inspired by the likes of Tedeschi Trucks Band.

“When you think of Derek Trucks, you also think of Susan [Tedeschi] because their music wouldn’t be what it is without one another. That’s kind of the relationship I would like to create with my band and have it be a band and not like an artist. There’s a big difference. And there’s definitely a lack of that right now. … You’re seeing more singular artists rather than a band as a unit. … If you watch one of our live shows, everyone will have their moment to shine, and we have 10-minute-long keyboard solos.”

The Hodge Podge recently finished recording an album that will be released within the next few months, which includes funky first single “Tell Me Why U Do That” (out April 22) with five-part harmonies that Bowers recorded with five singers recording in a room all at once.

The record consists of all originals but one, which is a cover of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music.”

“I think it’s gonna surprise you and a lot of people because it is very much not blues rock,” she said. “I feel like that’s what a lot of people think I’m gonna do. It’s not what I want to do. We were most inspired by Funkadelic and Sly & the Family Stone. … It’s like a modern take on it. It’s gonna be something different, and I’m really proud of it and excited for people to hear it.”

Grace Bowers has been sponsored by Gibson guitars since she was 14, but despite getting overtures from record labels, she remains an independent artist right now. She’s keeping her options open but realizes she can keep releasing music on her own for now.

“I just take great pride in owning all my things, and I don’t like it when people tell me what to do,” she said.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.