To reflect on the year, Chapelboro.com is re-publishing some of the top stories that impacted and defined our community’s experience in 2024. These stories and topics affected Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the rest of our region.
In general, 2024 was a great year for the Triangle’s burgeoning music scene – but the year was also marred by tragedy, as three shining stars were taken from us all too soon. They included an iconic rocker who inspired legends, a hip-hop ambassador whose influence reached across international borders, and a beloved powerhouse vocalist who overcame numerous health scares to deliver some of Chapel Hill’s most indelible songs.
The year 2024 had no sooner begun when the local music scene was shaken by terrible news: after a four-decade career marked by hard living, personal tragedy, and wild, wild performances, the legendary Dexter Romweber was dead. He passed away on February 16, at the age of just 57.
John Michael Romweber II launched his legend early: he formed his first band at the age of 10, and connected shortly thereafter with Chris “Crow” Smith, with whom he formed the two-man juggernaut Flat Duo Jets in 1983. Their intense lo-fi garage rock sound – call it “sturm und twang” – would directly influence later duos like the Black Keys and the White Stripes; Jack White in particular was a lifelong friend and once called Dex “one of the best kept secrets of the rock ‘n’ roll underground.” He was no secret in Chapel Hill: for years musicians were drawn to Dex’s Carrboro residence, a converted garage on Pine Street that he’d styled after the Addams Family and lovingly called the Moz (short for “mausoleum”).
And that touch of the otherworldly also manifested itself in his live performances. “His face contorted and his eyes rolled back in his head,” music journalist Aaron Gilbreath once wrote of Dex’s onstage persona. “He frothed, jogged in place and swung his body as if temporarily freed from gravity. People thought he was possessed.”
Photo via Dex Romweber on Facebook.
Dex kept rolling after the Jets broke up, most recently dropping the acclaimed album “Good Thing Goin'” just last summer. But his final years were defined by tragedy – with the loss of several siblings as well as his mother, from which he never fully recovered.
Dex Romweber’s passing in February was a sad and shocking start to the new year. But then the local music scene was hit with an even more shocking tragedy just two months later: the sudden and unexpected death on April 17 of inspirational hip-hop icon Kevin Joshua “Rowdy” Rowsey, who was only 32 years old.
Like Dex Romweber, Josh Rowsey launched his career at a young age, founding the UNC Cypher and the No9to5 Music collective while still a student at UNC. He briefly moved to New York after receiving his business degree, but soon returned to the Triangle – and quickly established himself as one of the shining lights of the local hip-hop scene. As a solo artist he produced two albums, 2017’s “Return of Black Wall Street” and 2019’s “Black Royalty”; he also led the jazz ensemble (J) Rowdy and the Nightshift, which performed with artists like Busta Rhymes and Rakim. Barely a week before his death, he completed a stint as the featured artist with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, an experience he described as “a highlight of my career.”
Photo via the UNC Department of Music.
But it was as a teacher and an ambassador that Josh Rowsey truly shined. After launching the UNC Cypher on campus, he repeated the feat by founding the Med City Cypher in Durham; both are still going strong to this day. Later, he co-founded the music label Only Us Media, whose lineup includes Grammy nominee Pierce Freelon.
And after earning a master’s degree in teaching from UNC-Greensboro, Rowsey channeled even more of his energy into inspiring self-expression in others. In Durham, he served as executive director of the Blackspace teen center. Beyond the Triangle, he co-produced the children’s show “Classroom Connections,” which aired statewide on PBS. And his career even took him to Mexico, where he served as a Hip-Hop Ambassador for the U.S. State Department, helping students find their own creative spirit within – a spirit he called the “God voice.”
The deaths of Dex Romweber and Josh Rowsey cast a shadow over the first half of 2024. Then as the year drew to a close, our community lost another shining musical light: Reese McHenry, whose powerful voice drew comparisons to Janis Joplin, passed away on November 14 at the age of just 51, after a second battle with cancer.
Even before her cancer fight, Reese McHenry’s career had already been defined by health scares – and her ability to bounce back stronger than ever. She was on the rise with her band the Dirty Little Heaters when she was sidelined by a series of strokes – but she roared back triumphantly to front a new band, The Second Wife, and release a pair of solo albums that earned widespread acclaim. Not long after, she received her first cancer diagnosis, but fought it off long enough to re-enter the studio to begin recording more new music. Her cancer came back before she was able to release her next album, but she did drop one single in the summer – aptly titled, “I Do What I Want.”
But while Reese McHenry was an undeniable force of nature behind a microphone, it was as a person that she was most beloved, by everyone who knew her. A wonderful piece by WUNC’s Brian Burns compiled a litany of thoughts and remembrances from nearly two dozen major figures in Triangle music – who described her as “hilarious, kind, empathetic…loving, brutally honest, talented, compassionate, brilliant…amazing, ferocious…a pure force…a big hearted strong loyal beautiful powerhouse…a shining light of positive energy…(and) one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.” Reid Johnson of Schooner, perhaps, put it best: “Reese McHenry forever.”
And in the end, all three of those shining lights who left us too young this year will be remembered not just for their indelible music, but for the legacy they left as people and the countless, immeasurable ways they inspired others. Wrote one person in response to Josh Rowsey’s death in April: “Your legacy lives on in all you’ve inspired. Because of you, countless people will hold strong to their dreams, reaching for the things in life that bring them the greatest joy…Because you believed in us, we believe in us.”
And of Dex Romweber, perhaps the greatest eulogy was written all the way back in 1985, in the final line of an article in the Daily Tar Heel that simply reads: “Dexter will live forever.”
They may be gone – but Dex, Reese, and Rowdy will all live on in us.
Featured photos via Stacy Watson, the Chapel Hill Public Library, and ReeseMcHenry.com.
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