Stiurt Bowgen

Stiurt Bowgen, also sometimes known as Doon Forbes, was a Lathadun singer and songwriter. Described as the "First Chair of the Gh’emshir scene", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of Lathadu's modern history. He achieved international fame for his long list of hit records, performing tours throughout east Alutra focused primarily in the Sedic nations. Bowgen was known for his frequent use of romantic and sentimental themes in his songs, as well as his distinctively sad and soulful voice and phrasing.

Early life
Bowgen was born on March 8, 1935 in Doghyscailt, Lathadu. The Bowgens were of Ordo-Gundiagh descent, claiming to be able to trace their ancestry back to The Long Walk. He was named for his great uncle, who had died a few years prior to his birth. Bowgen learned to play guitar and drums from his father, Fergus, a ferryman who played music in his free moments. At six, he was encouraged by his teachers to enter a singing contest at his school. The contest, held at the Southeast Lathadun Honeybee Festival, was his first public performance. Dressed in his working clothes, he stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang "Old Bull," a favorite of his father's. He placed first, beginning his career as an artist. A few months later, he received his first guitar for his birthday. For the next few years, he continued learning from his father, uncles, and various other musicians in his community. He recalled, "I took that guitar everywhere and just watched people, and learned to play bit by bit. I started singing too, though I was shy at first."

Bowgen was fairly popular at school in his youth. He regularly brought his guitar, playing and singing during lunchtime and between periods. Often, small crowds of his classmates would assemble around him to watch him play and sing. Occasionally entire classes would be late to their next periods, drawing the ire of his teachers. Bowgen was a devotee of the Lilee Oates Radio Show on his local station, which mostly played traditional and folk music like he'd grown up with. At twelve, he secured a part-time job at the station as a cleaner, but was able to meet Oates on several occasions and convinced her to supplement his guitar instruction by demonstrating chord techniques. A year later, Oates scheduled him for a surprise on-air guitar performance, in which he rose to the occasion and played to the enjoyment of hundreds of listeners. At sixteen, he successfully joined the regional Broadcaster's Union as an apprentice and got the midnight to seven am slot, directly before Oates. He continued this career at the expense of his schooling until he turned nineteen, when his compulsory service period with the military began.

Military service
The Third World War had just begun when Bowgen's period of service began. As he was beginning his compulsory service rather than having been drafted, he mostly served in support roles for the first few months of the war following basic training. However, as the Penguinnes Theater intensified in 1955, he was redeployed to the front lines there as an infantryman. There, he and his division were temporarily encircled by forces of the Tretuish State in the Ynnydreiht Reservoir. Relief came two weeks later from Ecoral reinforcements that broke the encirclement and forced the Fends to retreat. Due to the casualties faced by his division, it was disbanded, and men were reallocated elsewhere. Bowgen was moved to the Myrish front, fighting alongside Ordrish and Myrish troops against the forces of the Salian puppet state known as South Gladomyr. After being wounded in the Battle of Dincuff, he was removed from the front lines and remained there for the rest of the war. Bowgen regularly played guitar and sang for his compatriots, both in celebrating victory and keeping spirits high in less optimistic scenarios.

Early career
Following the end of the war and Bowgen's discharge from the military, he returned to Lathadu eager to rekindle his musical career. Rather than requesting his old position, he successfully requested a transfer to a station in Ushteyghoo, commonly regarded as the beating heart of Lathadu's musical scene. When he wasn't on the air, he frequented taverns, bars, and cornerclubs with friends across the city, both in order to listen and to play. His connections through the Broadcaster's Union landed him several performance jobs without drawing the ire of any performers guilds. It is generally accepted that it was in Ushteyghoo that he picked up and developed his more soulful, mournful sound, which would go on to define his style and the wider genre of gh’emshir. In 1960 he founded his own gh’emshir group, and in 1962 he began recording with the city's Musicians Guild. The group became known as Stiurt Bowgen and the Barleycorns, and their music soon became ubiquitous in Ushteyghoo's growing gh’emshir scene. Their first record was the single "Your Wave," which sold extremely well in Lathadu as well as southern Ordrey. The single was re-released a few months later with the new song "Waiting for Honey" on the reverse side.

Commercial breakout
Thanks to their growing popularity, Stiurt Bowgen and the Barleycorns began touring through the central Lathadun riverlands in 1965, performing at several locations in the stretch between Ushteyghoo and Calleebane. Although fans had been introduced to his work over the radio and through records, these performances represented the first outside of Ushteyghoo where what would become gh’emshir was performed for live audiences. This tour and subsequent ones, both in the riverlands and in the southwest, are considered to be fundamentally influential to other artists and groups who went on to make a name for themselves in the genre. After performing for a packed amphitheater in Calleebane, the band received its first invitation to perform abroad: to headline at the Lunar New Year festival in Forbes, Ordrey in 1966. At this time, Bowgen began billing himself as Doon Forbes in order to be more appealing to Ordrish crowds, and even began performing certain songs in Ordrish. His growing popularity and that of the genre lead to a nation-wide tour across Ordrey beginning in 1968. Stops included Forbes, Onadon, Noters, Boubrigge, Eprodour, Ledoride, Doven, Ebroudon, and finally, to Vernon, the Ordrish capital. Jokingly called the "Lathadun Incursion" by some in Ordrey, the tour took place over several weeks and was a critical success. The success of the Lower Ordreys Tour (as it become known) paved the way for the group to redouble its success and travel elsewhere.

Following the success of the Lower Ordreys Tour, Bowgen released the "Penguinnes Gh'emshir" album in 1968, which can best be described as a mix of upland Ordrish folk, Ushteyghoo brass, and Gundiagh stomp. The album received critical acclaim across East Alutra, particularly in Lathadu, Ordrey, and Salia. Radio stations carrying his songs also introduced both his stylings and the genre itself to nations like Gladomyr, Edury, Ecoralia, and the Serpentines. He even acquired a small but devout following in Galvia, a community of gh'emshir listeners that remains to this day. Although the genre had been well-established in Lathadu and Southern Ordrey by this time, it was Penguinnes Gh'emshir that brought the genre to the wider world.

Following a short tour of a few major cities in Salia in 1969, Bowgen returned home to Lathadu and took up residency in Ushteyghoo once more. He spent most of his time either performing or attending the performances of up-and-coming artists; he spent a great deal of energy promoting new talent, and frequently expressed his desire to help younger artists. In 1972, the went on an impromptu "walkabout" throughout Lathadu, visiting various towns and cities and sampling their styles. His music took on the sadder, more mournful tone that he would later be remembered for at this time. When he was asked by a reporter if he planned to change his style so radically again, he replied, "The music changes as I do. It'll stop when I'm dead." Bowgen spent most of his walkabout in Lathadu's south and southwest, particularly in the lake country near Lake Aalican. Although his style continued to evolve, he also began drinking heavily at this time and began staying on the couches of whoever would host him.

Ordrish Revolution
In 1975, the Ordrish Revolution began to Lathadu's north. This sudden and geographically near event woke Bowgen from the stupor he had begun to work himself into during his walkabout period. He read the writings of many Ordrish revolutionary poets in pamphlets distributed by the Democratic Laborers Party in Lathadu and decided that he needed to meet these artists for himself. He traveled over the border that year, falling in with a group near Lemdon. He befriended Ordrish folk singer Gavlan Dodathred, a fellow member of that artist's collective, at this time. Although he never personally took up arms, the group was frequently exposed to danger during the conflict from multiple sides. Indeed, in 1976, Bowgen was attacked by robbers in the dead of night and strangled, which damaged his vocal cords and caused a loss of the top three notes in his vocal range. Bowgen was heavily discouraged by this turn of events, but continued traveling with Dodathred and the collective until early 1975. He returned to Lathadu at this time, recording and releasing the album Deherree (Death by Fire). The album's contents were inspired by what he saw during his time in Ordrey, but also spoke to a broader audience with its commentary on conflict, loss, and struggle.

Dodathred was killed by pro-government partisans in Ordrey shortly after the album's release, which returned Bowgen to his downward spiral. This culminated in a suicide attempt in 1977, after which he was committed to a sanitarium outside Calleebane. He was released a year later in 1978, and traveled to Ordrey to perform with several other artists at a festival in Dodathred's home town of Saldour on the one-year anniversary of the revolution's victory.

Later career
In the early 1980s, Bowgen returned to a nation that was no longer as enthralled with gh'emshir as it once was, although he and his music remained popular with older audiences and in the more rural stretches of the country. He occasionally experimented with different styles, including recording with electric instruments for his single Snaieglonney ("glass wool"), but generally remained loyal to his more classical stylings for his solo work. He performed intermittently, mostly in Lathadu but occasionally in Ordrey. He continued promoting and even performing with younger artists, even when it resulted in something of a fusion with their and his styles. This can perhaps be seen in his collaboration with the Noa-Shlieeyree Skillad (The New Skillet-Lickers) in the song    Unjinagh ("Ashen"), a 1983 surprise commercial hit that introduced Bowgen to a new generation of listeners. Unjinagh would prove to Bowgen's last major hit, as the artist increasingly pursued a life outside the limelight in years following. He continued performing at smaller, rural venues, particularly in restaurants, bars, and Gund halls.

In 1992, he was diagnosed with multiple system atrophy, a rare neurodegenerative disorder, at the age of fifty-seven. He took up residence with his younger sister Yeearree and her two children in Doghyscailt at this time, teaching her children to play various instruments and playing cards with them. He also did the occasional local performance, but left the house less and less as his condition worsened. He passed away at the age of sixty-three in the year 1998.

Personal life
Although he cultivated an emotional and sometimes boisterous stage personality, Bowgen was shy and reserved when not performing, particularly around those he did not know well, and famously did very few interviews. An exceedingly private individual, he often kept even basic details about himself from bandmates and others around him (for example, bandmate and drummer for the Barleycorns Tonn lheimard believed that Bowgen was native to Ushteyghoo for the entirety of the time that they played together). Bowgen never married and rarely spoke of love or romance publicly, in further contrast with the subject material of his songs. Some historians of his life hold that he had a romantic relationship with Ordrish artist and revolutionary Gavlan Dodathred, but this is for the most part unsubstantiated. It is widely accepted that he had a long-term relationship with recording artist Marc Dalton between the years 1963-1974. The two remained close friends even after this, regularly exchanging letters according to Dalton's loved ones. Dalton was one of the few individuals not in Bowgen's family mentioned in his will.

Legacy
Bowgen is widely regarded as a Lathadun cultural icon. In 2001, he was officially recognized by the National Institute of Letters as a "cultural cornerstone" and was posthumously awarded several medals. In 2013, Lathadu's premier signed a bill naming him an honorary chair of the National Heritage Music Project, a national music program for the nation's youth. An important collection of Bowgen's possessions and personal effects from 1965-1984 were interred at the National Museum of Culture and Arts in 2017. The collection contains lyrics, letters, concert programs, tour itineraries, posters, articles, clippings, promotional items, souvenirs, and documents. As the catalyst for the wider Gh’emshir musical movement, he was central to not only defining it as a musical genre but making it a touchstone of populations rural and urban alike. With its origins drawing from many styles and forms, the genre's occupation of a central position in Lathadun culture (and Sedic, to a lesser extent) facilitated acceptance and appreciation of genres that people had not been exposed to previously.