Bluegrass icon Peter Rowan tops Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival.

Thanks to performances that included a giddyup gypsy jazz take on western swing from Hot Club of Cowtown, True West’s “Best Living Western Solo Musician” Dave Stamey and hometown horse whisperer Mike Beck, there were a bunch of sell-out shows at last year’s Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival. It happened to be the gathering’s inaugural year at the Monterey County Fairgrounds.

With the addition of Peter Rowan, this year’s 18th incarnation of the cowboy-centric festival is likely to sell out even faster.

Rowan was famously mentored by the “Father of Bluegrass” Bill Monroe. Now Rowan is set to appear 7pm Friday with Skip Gordon & His Waddle Pals (Connie Dover, Tom Sauber and Don Edwards) in a show dubbed “From Appalachia to the Oklahoma Hills.”

Rowan calls bluegrass “a personal statement.”

“[Bluegrass] is the vision transmitted through the songs,” he says. “Bluegrass is strong because of the feeling that fills the song structure. You’ve got blues, you’ve got gospel and you’ve got Celtic mixed in, creating that magic sound.”

He helped lead short-lived bluegrass supergroup Old and in the Way, whose self-titled debut spent years as the best-selling bluegrass record of all time. With Jerry Garcia on banjo, Vassar Clements on fiddle, Rowan on guitar, David Grisman on mandolin and John Kahn on bass, Old and in the Way helped authentic old-time mountain music straight from Appalachia reach larger, younger audiences.

Cow Bop guitarist Bruce Forman has been riding the genre crossover train for most of his career.

“Jazz music and cowboys are a very strange combination, but for me they’re all the same,” Forman says. “Everyone was spinning in their socks at first but they came to really enjoy [Cow Bop] and next thing I knew, we’re making records and writing arrangements.”

More than a decade later, Cow Bop continues to draw audiences worldwide and the Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival is usually on their annual schedule. “The festival is special to me because it’s like coming home,” Forman says. “I see old friends and Monterey is a great place to share music and enjoy all things cowboy.”

Forman says teaching – he’s been a jazz guitar instructor at University of Southern California for 10 years – is one way he keeps producing fresh new music.

“I’m teaching kids who are always bringing new ideas to me,” he says.

18TH ANNUAL MONTEREY COWBOY POETRY & MUSIC FESTIVAL Friday-Sunday, Nov. 18-20. Monterey County Fair & Event Center, 2004 Fairgrounds Road, Monterey. $345/weekend; $25-50/event. www.montereycowboy.org.