Radjasthanissippi blues
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.
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| Vishwamohan 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.
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 ! ■
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| Salil Bhatt |
Harry Manx Web site : https://harrymanx.com
Interviews
Live songs from the album
Live concerts
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