April 27, 2022

Harry Manx - Road Ragas (Live) (2003/2004)

The album

Radjasthanissippi blues

Rajasthanissippi blues, ragassippi blues, hindustanissippi blues, mysticssippi blues, whatever you call it, Manx has offered us a superb live testimony of his unique blend of western folk and country blues with eastern hindustani traditional raga music. All this wouldn't have been possible if Manx hadn't been a tireless globe-trotter and discovered in India a strange instrument : the Mohan Veena, a 20-string guitar-sitar hybrid invented by Rajasthani master musician Vishwamohan Bhatt (read below).

Born in 1955 on the Isle of Man, in the northern Irish Sea halfway between England and Northern Ireland, his family migrated to Ontario (Canada) when he was still a child. From 16 or 17, he started to make his way in the sound business until finally becoming the sound man at the famous Toronto blues club El Mocambo, where he worked with many musicians.

At 20, himself a guitarist and singer, he embarked for Paris (France) where he was busking as a one-man band to make a living, also traveling to different European countries, before making the jump to Japan in the mid-1980s where he spent several years. It is in Japan that he heard the music of one Vishwamohan Bhatt for the first time on a record. Fascinated by this music, he left for India, looking for the pandit (master) until as he tells in the album, in the middle of one 1992 night, he finally knocked at Bhatt's door.

Vishwamohan Bhatt
He stayed with him five years ! He could at last set his eyes on the unique instrument that was going to change his life, the Mohan Veena, and learned how to use it with the pandit's son, Salil Bhatt.
"One of Bhatt's former western students had left his guitar by his house, Manx tells. Bhatt learned how to play it and decided to add 14 extra "sympathetic" strings to produce a richer and fuller sound", adding that his own decision to make blues meet classical Indian music came first as a fun thing while exercising to mix different musical genre with his master.

In 2000, after a detour stay in Brazil, his wife's birth country, he returned to Canada, settled down on an island off Vancouver, and prepared a demo for a potential album which finally came out in 2001.

"Road Ragas", recorded live at The Basement in Sydney (Australia) in 2003 and released in 2004, is his third solo album. It features live versions of songs from his first and second albums, a new original ("Call It The Blues") and three covers of Willy Dixon ("Spoonful") or traditionals ("Take This Hammer" and "Sitting On Top Of The World"). Manx plays the Mohan Veena ("the heavy artillery" as he calls it), the slide and steel guitar, playing the three of them on his lap, the 6-string banjo (an instrument with "bad reputation", jokingly comments Manx), harmonica and stomp box.

The live sound quality is great (though the bass sounds volume could have been lowered a bit), Manx's skills on his instruments are faultless as is his singing, and the guy is cool as can be on stage (a Zen attitude that he certainly caught in Japan). From the opening "Bring That Thing" that introduces exotic raga sounds he manages to give to his steel guitar slide technique, the whole album is gently swinging, taking the listener from the fertile Mississippi Delta plains to the desert stretches of Rajasthan.

Manx music is primarily blues but extends to folk ("Don't Forget To Miss Me", "Coat Of Mail") and gospel ("Only Then Will Your House Be Blessed", "Take This Hammer").
Of course some tracks stand out : Manx raga instrumental "Nat Bhariav" on the Mohan Veena, his raga/blues medley "The Gist Of Madhuvanti/The Thrill Is Gone" on the 6-string banjo which he makes sounding very Indian, his very Hindustani version of "Spoonful" on the Mohan Veena, his Indian-tinged bluegrass banjo version of "Sitting On Top Of The World" and his groovy cover of Muddy Waters' "Can't Be Satisfied".
Undoubtedly a must-have album ! 

The Mohan Veena
It is a highly modified archtop guitar with 19 strings: three melody strings and four drone strings coming out of the peg heads, and 12 sympathetic strings mounted to a piece of wood added to the side of the neck. The melody strings are on the treble side of the neck, and the drone strings are on the bass side. The drone strings are lower in height than the melody strings to allow for unrestricted playing of the melody strings. The sympathetic strings run underneath the melody and drone strings to yet another level in the bridge. They sound without being directly plucked by simple resonance of their fundamental or harmonic frequencies when the "active" strings are played.
Salil Bhatt
A gourd (tumba) is often screwed to the back of the neck top to produce improved sound sustain and resonance. Manx one being amplified doesn't need it. Like a slide guitar, the instrument is held on the lap and played with a metal bar.
The Mohan Veena is under tremendous tension : the total strings pull is over 250 kg. It is due to this high tension that the sympathetic strings ring out and strengthen each note played. This is a loud instrument needing low amplification.

In February 2014, Manx precious instrument was stolen in the Chicago O'Hare airport. Fortunately the thief was stupid enough to return to the same place the next day to steal more luggage and had the bad surprise to see the police suddenly surround him ! He was immediately handcuffed and escorted to the station where he told them where the instrument was. Fortunately.


Harry Manx Web site : https://harrymanx.com

Interviews
In Quebec, February 2022 : https://youtu.be/09TTJrzAypw
At the Montreal International Jazz Festival, 2015 : https://youtu.be/PvOXrNykmsA
At the Kitchener Blues Festival, Canada, 2012 : https://youtu.be/GbOXFaxdrfg

Live songs from the album
"Baby Please Don't Go" (with Steve Marriner on harmonica) : https://youtu.be/frG71GruXng or https://youtu.be/GENCLINzeFA or https://youtu.be/P0JImUgNDoc
"Don't Forget To Miss Me" : https://youtu.be/usR5zbNe0A4 or https://youtu.be/bNFFiAJFlyA
"The Gist of Madhuvanti / Voodoo Child / The Thrill Is Gone" (with Clayton Doley : Hammond Organ - Yeshe Reiners : Kamele Ngoni, Mbira - Steve Marriner : harmonica - Kiran Ahlawalia : vocals) : https://youtu.be/8CHPaI0vJIY
"Spoonful" (with Clayton Doley on organ and Brent Shindel on electric guitar) :  https://youtu.be/mn17wun1FEc

Live concerts
At the Birdland, Hamburg (Germany), 2018 : https://youtu.be/5Jam9zXJ5ig & https://youtu.be/gc6IUvzZkUY
With German musician Richard Bargel, Koln (Germany), 2018 : https://youtu.be/OliQ0XZqgQ4
At the Emmanuel United Church in Cowansville (Quebec), 2017 : https://youtu.be/hVESfUOFXXY
At the "Auberge de La Fascine", Isle-aux-Coudres (Quebec) :
In Bendigo (Australia), 2016 :
On the late "Drew Marshall Show" (Canada), 2015 : https://youtu.be/zfSQIIXRtCs
With guitarist G.R. Gritt, 2014 : https://youtu.be/M3VmMp3GVnE
"Voodoo Child " (with Kevin Breit on guitar & Clayton Dloey on keyboards), Nelson (British Columbia, Canada), 2014 : https://youtu.be/0wQU0rRnNGQ
Show & chat in Adelaide (Australia),  2013  :
with German world music multi-instrumentist  Yeshe Reiners : https://youtu.be/feLhbEwMHug
At the Avignon Blues Festival in France), 2012 : https://youtu.be/HNS4f4oVJyI
At the Q-bus Cub, Leiden (Holland), 2011 : https://youtu.be/NqrRngyH2xk
With David Lindley, Victoria (British Columbia, Canada), 2011 : https://youtu.be/kgnKKNoMxlA
In Sturgeon Bay (Wisconsin), 2010 :
Live version of the J.J. Cale's "Tijuana", Capilano University (Vancouver), 2010 : https://youtu.be/l4fWmV64-QA
"Crazy Love", Sydney, 2010 : https://youtu.be/iScMAUb6gZc
"Voodoo Child" Sydney, 2010 : https://youtu.be/AH54_aWMgak
With keyboardist Michael Kaeshammer in Belgium, 2007 : https://youtu.be/6sU1I3A7PVM
At the Festival On The Green, Middlebury (Vermont) 2007 : https://youtu.be/03ptP5q3imY
At the Woodford Folk Festival (Australia), 2001 : https://youtu.be/5H8tXjxDOQE

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