Grace Bowers' star continues to rise after the young, hot-shot blues player shared the stage for a guitar solo-stuffed rendition of a Beatles classic with Peter Frampton and Trey Anastasio.
The trio joined forces at the Love Rocks NYC benefit concert at The Beacon Theater on March 6, dishing out a sumptuous cut of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. It was a performance that saw Frampton fulfill a longstanding desire to play with Anastasio, and champion Bowers as “a wonderful wonderful talent”.
Nashville prodigy Bowers, 18, was a breakout performer in 2024, with Grace Bowers & the Hodge Podge's debut vintage-yet-contemporary album "Wine on Venus" garnishing praise from across the guitar community. Her talents have won over Devon Allman, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and Susan Tedeschi amongst others, and now she can also count Peter Frampton as a fan.
“[I'm] a huge, huge fan of both of them,” Frampton had said of his two co-guitarists for the performance. Bowers, though, is at the center of his warming words.
“One is a lady that is going to be on your mind for the rest of the weekend because she is an incredible player, [and] one of the up-and-coming phenomenal players,” he continues.
Phish's Anastasio, he says, is a “gentleman that I've always wanted to meet and play with,” before referencing Phish's live album "Hampton Comes Alive", which is a very tongue-in-cheek nod to 1976's "Frampton Comes Alive!"
To say their 10-minute performance had plenty of guitar solos would feel like an understatement, but what the trio delivers is as tasteful as it comes; egos are left resolutely at the door as they weave their respective personalities into the song's tapestry.
Bowers employs her sidekick Murphy Labs Gibson SG, Anastasio his hollow-bodied Languedoc G2, and Frampton his triple humbucker "Phenix" Les Paul, with Bower's hugely soulful solo leaving her colleagues beaming, and earning raucous applause for the audience.
The young prodigy's rise hasn't been without its adversity, though. Speaking last year, Bowers explained how she is regularly underestimated.
“I get disrespected before I even play, she said. “People take one look at me, and immediately get a thought in their head of what I am, and they don’t take me as seriously as they should.”
She is in a sense, an old soul in a young body – which is compounded by the fact one of her prized SGs, a 1961 model, is 45 years her senior.
She cited players like Leslie West, Santana, and Jimi Hendrix, alongside contemporary talents Bruno Mars and Childish Gambino, when discussing the 10 albums that changed her life with Guitar Player, but it's those flavors of yesteryear that shine brightly through her playing.
Gear-wise, she usually runs her guitars through a cleanly dialed Fender Twin amp, letting her pedalboard – which she gave Guitar Player an impromptu tour of earlier this year – do much of the heavy lifting.
Meanwhile, Peter Frampton continues to play live as much as possible, despite battling with inclusion body myositis (IBM), which forces him to perform sat down.
Frampton made a surprise appearance at the Martin Guitars booth at NAMM 2025, where he stated: “I'm gonna keep going as long as my fingers… well... it's getting more difficult, I have to admit.
“The worst thing about playing for me is when I'm soloing I have to actually think about what I'm playing. I don't want to think; I want it just to be coming from my heart. That's how I always played.
The “Lucy” Les Paul with which the Beatles and Eric Clapton recorded their classic hit, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was famously “kidnapped” in 1973, and George Harrison went to extreme measures to get it back.
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