I started out musically in Edmonton Alberta, Canada playing trumpet in a youth orchestra in my very early teens.  But in my mid-teens drums and rock music would replace the trumpet and orchestral work.  I formed several groups (Roach, Liberty) during this period.  Neighborhood Community Center and school dances were the order of the day.

While playing drums in these various groups, I slowly picked up the guitar and eventually struck out on my own as a singer-songwriter.   I married my wife Wendy in 1976 and we moved in 1977 to Kelowna British Columbia, Canada.  Over the time spent working musically on my own, I had been going through a process of researching and investigating a wide variety spiritual concepts. Not long after moving to Kelowna I saw a short information film about the Baha’i Faith on television.  The piece simply showed a sphere against a plain background that suddenly exploded into many pieces after which each part of the broken sphere grew small hands, each of different colors, which grasped one another and pulled the sphere whole again.  That was it.  But the impact that small film had on me is indescribable.  Then some contact information was displayed on the screen which I hastily copied down. 

I thought that the name, Baha’i, seemed familiar but I couldn't place it.  Finally I recalled that it was in the group, Seals & Crofts’ lyrics and live performances that I had heard the name.  Over the next year or so I studied information supplied to me by the Baha’is (who did answer my inquiry from the TV spot), and eventually spent some time with some Baha’is in informal discussion groups.  Then in the fall of 1979, I became a Baha’i myself.  For information about the Baha'i Faith, here is an official site: Baha'i.org

It was then that I met with a young Baha’i named Mike Ward, a musician and tunesmith, a fellow that I have worked with musically fairly steadily ever since.  In 1980 Mike and I got together with fellow Baha’i musician, Jim Gawne and formed the trio “Gawne, Ryan & Ward”.  Some songs from this period are included in this site.  They are merely live recordings onto cassette from coffeehouse performances, but they have a charm all their own.

Gawne, Ryan & Ward played steadily throughout the southern interior of British Columbia for several years, performing original material of a folk/jazz/rock style.

Jim Gawne left the group in 1983 and Mike and I began working with another Baha’i musician, Larry Rowe.  We called the project “Quest” and continued to play original material throughout southern BC.

In the fall of 1988 I moved to Penticton British Columbia, Canada and started working as a solo artist, occasionally calling on Mike Ward to join me in various projects.  In the summer of 1990, I met  Eugene Smith and formed Spirit Village.  As a duo Eugene and I played at various coffeehouses, folk festivals and other concerts often meeting and jamming with other musicians.  In the fall of 1993 Spirit Village expanded from a duo to a six member band.

Spirit Village continued to evolve until, today, though it has ceased to be a band, I have continued Spirit Village as a recording project. It involves many of the past band members who contribute, when possible, to record new material, as well as bringing new folks like Dave Sopel, Mike Garner and Philip Patenaude and others into Spirit Village's    orbit.

In my own small way in sharing my songs, my thoughts and other interests, I hope to  contribute to the emergence of joy, light, clarity, unity and the spirit of global fellowship in the world.  And to all of you also trying in your own ways, great and small, direct and indirect, to constructively aid this emergence, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!

Now with the establishment of  this website, there is now an accessible and easy way of sharing my work and interests with others.

Gawne, Ryan & Ward

Quest

Eugene Smith & Bob Ryan

Spirit Village: Laurel DeWitt, Auberte Campeau, Isabelle Charland, Eugene Smith, Mike Ward & Bob Ryan

Philip Patenaude

Biography

Mike Garner

Dave Sopel

Mike Ward

Mike Ward

Larry Rowe

Bob Ryan: A Musical and Spiritual Journey