Dwayne Wimpy Bowden keeps pact with God on Heavens Rejoice

ALBANY — As Dwayne “Wimpy” Bowden tells the story of his “divorce” from the Albany-based rock band Messendger, he tells it dispassionately, a matter-of-fact tale of being voted out of an up-and-coming group he’d helped form.

Bowden’s a born-again Christian now, a man whose latest musical endeavor is a double-album set of original contemporary Christian tunes called “Heavens Rejoice.” And with the help of his beloved “friend-lover-manager-roadie-A&R rep-booking agent-between-set-DJ-wife” Martha, he’s carved out a happy existence for himself that most would envy.

But there’s no question that that long-ago snub, which came just before Messendger took MTV by storm and began a meteoric rise in the music industry that would flame out quickly, left its mark on Bowden’s soul.

“What was the deal; why did the guys vote you out of the band?” Bowden is asked before a Wednesday-night program he and Martha host at the local Moose Club.

“Don’t know,” Bowden says, simply.

“There has to be a reason. Didn’t you want to know?” Not letting him off the hook so easily.

“No, I didn’t want to know, because at that time I hated them,” Bowden says, knowing such an admission goes against the principles he now lives by. “I held that hatred for a long time, but as time went by, I got over it. I’ve reconciled with the other guys, and we talk. But the answer to that question is one that, to this day, I just don’t know.”

Bowden’s done quite fine for himself musically since he and the boys in Messendger — Brad Sayre, Allen Poole and John Buchan — parted ways. They became darlings of MTV for a brief period, reaching the finals of the network’s “Basement Tapes” competition and recording a well-reviewed but financially disappointing self-titled album before flaming out. He caught on with country band Crossover and recorded the two-sided regional hit single “The Early Morning Blues”/”You’re the Only Girl I’ll Ever Need,” and he’s remained a musical road warrior, making a living doing what he loves.

“In all honesty, I think I’ve come out of it better than the guys in Messendger,” Bowden said. “I went through a lot of stuff, but I’m in a happy place right now.”

Indeed, Bowden plays regularly — as a solo act and with his new band Flying Blind — throughout the region, and “Heavens Rejoice” is repayment for a pact he made with God.

“I told God if he’d let me get one secular CD out, the next one would be a Christian project, praising him,” the singer/songwriter/guitarist said. “God did me one better, allowed me to do two CDS (‘The Messenger’ and ‘Whine and Shine’). The latest album is me keeping my word to God.”

Bowden, who was born in Madison, Ga., but moved to Albany with his family when he was 5, got his first six-string guitar (“a Harmony Rocket”) when he was 9 and his first 12-string when he was 12. Bullied as a youngster, he wanted badly to show off his self-taught playing skills when other musically inclined peers got together, but he was not allowed to join in.

“I’d hide where I could see what they were doing, and I’d watch where their hands went on the guitar,” Bowden said. “I’d draw little diagrams of the guitar and put dots where their fingers would go when they played certain songs. I guess you could say I did Tablature before Tablature was cool.”

Bowden played alone until he met Steve Daniels, a fellow loner guitar player who owned “the only hollow-body electric Martin guitar I’ve ever seen.” They formed The Bad Habits and played a few gigs at the local YMCA and at Merry Acres restaurant.

Bowden got his first professional job while at Albany High School, playing with a five-man group called the Fabulous Four Corners. (“There were five of us, but we didn’t want to be square,” he explains.) They were paid $25 and “all the barbecue we could eat” to play at Shiver’s Drive-in in Camilla.

“There was a pretty big band in the area called The Jokers who would sneak us into the Candlelight Lounge and let us play during their breaks,” Bowden said.

After high school graduation, the newly-married Bowden walked away from his musical career for family life. Neither the marriage nor the musical break worked out, though, and soon he’d hooked up with another band. This one, called The Still Alive, eventually included future Messendger mates Poole, Jesse Glover and Eddie Robinson.

“We had a chance to go and play with a singer who was signed to do shows in Lubbock, Texas, but two weeks into that the guy who was the star quit,” Bowden said. “We were stuck in Texas with no money, so we started calling every agent we could find. We signed on with the guy who managed Dennis Yost and the Classics 4 and other bands, so we took off for Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

“We came home, started a tour of Florida and met Perry Statiras, who’d seen us play in a local club. He wanted to be our manager.”

But after a show in Pensacola, Fla., the Bobby Roberts Talent Agency that Statiras had hooked The Still Alive up with, called to say it was dropping the band, which by then had decided to change its name to “Messenger” but had to “add the d” when they discovered a gospel band had registered the name.

“We took a break, and then when we all got back together, Brad, Allen and John Buchan — who had replaced Eddie — told me they were going to go out as a three-piece,” Bowden said. “I think Perry might have had something to do with it, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could say. Not long after that they were all over MTV’s ‘Basement Tapes’ and put out an album.”

Bowden was hurt by the betrayal, but he didn’t let it chase him away from music. He recorded with Crossover, played with regional country bands like Wilderness, Nite Life and Mariah, and generally dabbled in music. Then, in 1988, he became a Christian and played solely with the Covenant Presbyterian Church Praise Team.

“I quit playing secular music for like 12 years because I thought that was what being a Christian meant,” he said. “I finally came to the conclusion, though, that music is music. God showed me that music is a gift. I played not because of me but because God had given me a gift.

“He told me, ‘It doesn’t matter where you play so long as you honor me.’”

Martha Palmer came into her future husband’s life in 2012 when he was at an extreme low.

“I was in a dark place,” Bowden said. “My little brother, who was Martha’s ‘boyfriend’ back when they were in grammar school, was dying, and my mother had Alzheimer’s. I found myself venting on Facebook, and on March 28, 2012 Martha reached out to me. We decided to go out to eat together, and we’ve been going out to eat together ever since.”

The couple were married on 11-12-13.

“I’d been married 30 years and separated for seven when I met him,” Martha Bowden said. “I had no interest in being married again; I liked being alone. But God had other plans for us.”

Martha Bowden became Wimpy’s muse, inspiring such songs as “Right in Front of Me ” (“He sung it to me at the altar when we got married,” she says with more than a touch of pride.) He was inspired by her nonprofit (Moving Mountains) charity work, and the pair became formidable agents for change by pooling their talents.

“I’ve written six notebooks of songs, probably more than 500,” Wimpy Bowden said. “Whether I’m writing secular or Christian music, they come from inspiration. The inspiration comes from life, from my love of this woman, from my love of God. There are mornings when I wake up and He’s given me a song, already written.”

Bowden is booked to play at the Albany VFW post Saturday. He plays most Fridays at Smoke and Fire restaurant, and he frequently jams at the weekly Tift Park Neighborhood Market, where Martha sells her homemade jams and jellies. Through their Jade Frog Talent and Productions, Bowden is recording a demo with Flying Blind (which includes Everette “Ever-Ready” McDaniel, Ron “Mash Taters” White and Wayne-O Watson).

All three of Bowden’s albums, which he recorded with producer/musician Ed McRee at McRee’s Albany Recording Studio, are available on reverbnation.com and at the http://dwaynewimpybowden.webs.com website.

“Life’s good,” he said. “I definitely want to keep playing, and it wouldn’t be a bad retirement to write some songs for other people and go to the mailbox every month to pick up royalty checks. I’ve had to go through a lot of history in my life, but life’s about as good as it gets right now.”