Peter Rowan paints the grass blue this weekend

At 66, bluegrass legend Peter Rowan is ready for a little simplicity in his life and work.

But there are pressures to do more for music in this country. Case in point: African music, which he says he believes has a place - but rarely finds one - in the American bluegrass-festival scene.

"It's needed now," says Rowan, who is the Big Name at the inaugural Meadow-Grass Music Festival this weekend. "But it's not my job to bring every culture through me to American music. I've done it. But I've got to feed the spotted pony, you know, and cross the great divide."

It's about 4 p.m. in Holland - 8 a.m. here - and Rowan is talking on his manager's cell phone and idly picking a guitar as he waits to do sound checks for a concert in Leeuwarden, a coastal town west of Amsterdam.

"I'm playing one mike, one voice and one guitar," he says of the Netherlands tour.

"That's what turned me on originally, the beautiful sound of the guitar without amplification."

A Boston native, Rowan grew up in a world of music. His parents and family were musicians. As a teen, he pored over bluegrass albums and radio programs such as "The Hayloft Jamboree." He haunted the legendary Boston bluegrass Hillbilly Ranch, where he heard old-time players including the Lilly Brothers and Geno Foreman. Still in high school, he started a Tex-Mex dance band called the Cupids that was popular along the East Coast.

Then, one night, he hitchhiked to Washington, D.C., and a little bar on M Street to hear the progressive bluegrass band The Country Gentlemen.

"Before I even went inside," he says in his online bio, "I looked through the window and I saw Charlie Waller lifting up his guitar to the microphone to accent a phrase. I'd been listening to the records and I loved the dynamics, but I wasn't sure how they did it. Now, here it was. I could see how it was done.

"I was converted on the spot. I thought bluegrass was it for me."

In 1964, the 22-year-old joined the legendary Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys as a singer and rhythm guitarist. It's a relationship that continues to color his work with the rich darkness of an old church pew.

"When I came to Bill Monroe, I brought something to him and he worked on something in me - that give and take."

He describes the '60s music scene as club upon club flowing with music made by men and women who would one day become groundbreakers of the form.

"I think my generation had the opportunity to learn from people in a much more intimate atmosphere. I was 17 or 20 and they were 30 to 55. That was an interesting way to pick up stuff, to get the essence of the style.

"It's not that way anymore," he goes on, his fingers picking out a new refrain on the guitar. "And it's a shame kids aren't going to be able to come out now and hear the music the same way."

After Monroe, Rowan wandered - from band to band, from rock to folk to country to bluegrass, from playing with his brothers to musicians Dave Grisman and Jerry Garcia. Some combinations spawned an album or two. Many didn't.

Along the way, Rowan became known for his strong ties to traditional bluegrass, a sweet tenor, virtuosic picking and his easy yodeling. He also became a touchstone for many young players, much in the way that Monroe was for him.

"All music is repetition of things developed along the way. We're all a lineage of players."

Besides playing concerts all over the world, he continues to write a lot, pushing himself to advance the musicality of his work. He's got an album out this winter, he says, and material for two more, "whenever the record company decides that CDs are still viable." Rowan laughs, but with an it's-not-funny edge.

Playing live is still the thing, says the Telluride Bluegrass Festival regular, and MeadowGrass will be only the second festival of his summerlong run of them, one of the 150 dates he plays every year.

"I'll be appearing with the four-piece semielectric band," Rowan says of the Free Mexican Air Force. "Just doing my songs. There won't be any stylistic focus.

"Everything," he says, "has bluegrass in it."

SATURDAY SHOWS

Indie rock and electric

• Noon: Edith Makes a Paperchain, indie rock with traditional folk sound, Colorado Springs
• 1:30 p.m.: The Haunted Windchimes with Jack Trades, indie rock-blues, Pueblo
  
• 3 p.m.: John-Alex Mason, blues, Colorado Springs
  
• 4:30 p.m.: Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles, something between country and punk, Boston
  
• 6:30 p.m.: Magnolia Electric Co., country rock, Chicago

SUNDAY SHOWS

Americana

• Noon: Susan Rissman, Joe Uveges and K.J. Braithwaite, trio of local legends playing contemporary folk, Colorado Springs
  
• 1:30 p.m.: Head for the Hills, mixes traditional harmonies and compositions with improvisation, Fort Collins
  
• 3 p.m.: Sons and Brothers, "Westgrass," which combines bluegrass, gospel and "Old Time ‘fiddlin,'" Colorado Springs
  
• 4:30 p.m.: Jimmy Ibbotson, member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Woody Creek
  
• 6:30 p.m.: Peter Rowan and the Free Mexican Air Force, bluegrass legend with his "semielectric" four-piece band

Note: All times are approximate.

MEADOWGRASS MUSIC FESTIVAL

When: Gates open at 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: La Foret Conference and Retreat Center, 6145 Shoup Road, Black Forest

Tickets: $30 one-day pass and $55 festival pass through today; $40/$70 at the gate; carload passes $80 today and $100 at gate

Something else: Camping available, but dogs, food, coolers, alcoholic beverages and recording equipment aren't allowed.

And another thing: Swimming pool is open when lifeguard is on duty.