DigBeat

The Fab Four did it. So did Oregon – the group, that is.

 

Mixing Eastern and Western music isn’t new.

 

But when done well, pairing hypnotic tones of The East with foot-stomping rhythms of The West still can produce fresh and exotic sounds – and it’s also one of DigBeat’s favorite types of fusion.

 

An example of this is Harry Manx, who brought his one-man-band act to Ashland last month for the Rogue Valley Blues Festival.

 

On the festival’s opening night, Manx, aka the Mysticssippi Blue Man, won over the crowd with his intoxicating blend of rootsy blues, folk and ragas, including songs performed on the Mohan veena, a 20-string classical Indian music guitar he learned to play by studying for five years in India with the instrument’s maker, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.

 

Yes, the fiddle is a violin. But is the banjo a sitar? That’s what you’d think when Manx covers Hendrix’s funk-rock opus, “Voodoo Chile,” featured on his latest album – and eighth in eight years on his very own indie label, Dog My Cat Records – “Harry Manx & Friends Live at the Glenn Could Studio.”

 

Manx returned to the Old Ashland Armory the next day and earnestly revealed his bag of tricks, including becoming a one-man band and how to sound like Ravi Shankar on a 12-string acoustic, during a guitar workshop.

 

Here’s DigBeat’s video of the workshop.

 

 

And the Canadian bluesman gave this interview with DigBeat.

 

DB: You really capture your sound well in terms of what you hear on the album and what you hear live.

 

HM: I think a lot about gear and tone and hence I travel not with other musicians, but just with a sound man. And we have a big investment in our gear and I think people appreciate it because when they hear a nice, warm sound that’s really engaging but not loud, then they really go, ‘Oh, wow. That’s rich. That’s rich.’

 

DB: It seems like your music really captures people. You take them into the zone, right? That Harry Zone?

 

HM: I try to, you know. And it’s pretty much up to me to get into the music. If I really get into it, the people follow me there, you know. At times, it will occasionally happen when I’m not as inspired, I can see the audience won’t be, either. So I think it’s very important for an artist to get into the music, too. And I try to do that. It usually happens; last night was a great night. People seemed to be right on what I was doing. Even though I got some young guys – you know, they were pretty restless in the back, I could feel – but every once in a while they’d just get dead quiet and they’d watch exactly what was going on and I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’

 

DB: You sound like a four- or five-piece band.

 

HM: I’m a one-man band. I play drums with the feet. I’ve always tried to fill up the whole room with sound. It’s just sort of a personal challenge – if I can (do it). And I’m starting to get there. It took me quite a few years to get good on the drums with my feet. That was a real a distraction at first; I was trying to play the guitar and I also had to be the drummer. But now it happens by itself. It’s become an unconscious thing. And people like that sound. They’re not used to a one-man band on a stage.

 

DB: Once you had the vision for your sound, how long did it take you to get there?

 

HM: I was living in India for 12 years and came back to North America in 2000, to Canada. And I started then to work on getting my gear and my sounds and my songs together and now I feel like on top of the game, you know. I have all the pieces of the puzzle together. I have good agents working for me in America and Canada and I’m constantly touring. I think I’ve sort of arrived after this many years to a place where I wanted to be.

 

DB: You mentioned working as the sound man in a blues bar in Canada in the ’70s. Is that the story of how you became a blues man?

 

HM: It is, really. I watched these guys every night. I loved the whole culture of the blues. The music, but not only (that) – the whole vibe around it and the feel of it, the approach to life. A very lazy looking way to succeed in life. And I fell in love with it. I fancied myself a blues player. But it took a long time to get there. I never learned any licks from those guys – any direct ways to play – but what I got was inspiration about how to find a groove. That was my biggest inspiration. When you play, get the groove going, so everybody taps their foot. It doesn’t matter if it’s one chord or 20 -- get the groove going.

 

And I quit doing that and moved to Paris and became a street musician and right away I just started playing blues – that’s all I played – so I was making my living right away as a street player in Paris and that was at 19. Well, I just turned 54 and I’ve been playing ever since, but not much in North America. I just started really in 2000 to play over here. Prior to that, I played a lot in Asia – Japan, Australia, India. I toured a long time with my teacher, an Indian musician. And Europe.

 

DB: Tell me about when you first heard the Mohan veena and what that set off inside of you, and tell me about your years in India.

 

HM: Well, the first time I heard the veena, I was struck down. I felt like that was the sound of the instrument I was looking for my whole life, though I didn’t even realize what it was I was looking for. I knew was searching for another instrument than the slide guitar and, when I heard that, I said, ‘Well, now my life has changed directions. Everything has lost value except that instrument and learning to play it.’ And I went to see my teacher in Rajasthan, I met him, and from that day on I just dropped everything in my life and just stayed there and I stayed with him at his place for five years. And he just couldn’t get rid of me and I wouldn’t give it up. And I came out of there knowing how to play that instrument and it’s sort of kept me going and will keep me going for the rest of my life – that five years I put in with him.   

 

DB: Tell me the story of Dog My Cat.

 

HM: Well, ‘Dog My Cat,’ it was the name of my first record, which I recorded in 11 hours and it sold 30,000 copies. I went from having a suit case and a car and my wife, to living in a house after I made that record. And so I call my record company Dog My Cat. Now, Dog My Cat, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s kind of a zen koan: the more you think about it, the worse off you are. So you’ve just got to let it go and allow whatever comes to your mind, but I used it for that reason – because people were curious about it, and they also wouldn’t forget it.

 

DB: How much time do you spend in the studio?

 

HM: Traditionally I only went in the studio for a couple of days or maybe a week and make a record. I work on it before that and I get ready. But lately I’ve been going to the studio quite often. And my sound engineer now has his own portable studio so we record even in hotel rooms, and I’m working a new record, just slowly, slowly this time. I think it’s very important that you always be putting out new music and that’s how you keep your audience interested. I put out a record every year and that’s a challenge for me, too, because I have to get everything together. But when I know I have to do it, I always do it, so it’s been working good. They’ve been selling well.

 

DB: How do you put your stamp on songs you cover?

 

HM: If I have a song I like, I try to play it so it grooves. If I can twist it a little bit, I like to, just because nobody else twists it like I do. So, I try to do it. But I don’t want to be disrespectful to stuff. But I mess with people’s stuff, you know – I mess with Hendrix’s stuff and I mess with Muddy Waters’ stuff – I twist them around. So, uh, sorry (laughs).

 

DB: Hendrix is one of my biggest influences. Tell me how ‘Voodoo Chile’ came about.

 

HM: Well, I’ve always loved Jimi, too; I’m a big fan of his. And I looked for a few songs of his I could kind of get onto an acoustic instrument, because I think that’s fascinating for the listener, to see something taken out of context. Right? And it kind of indicates your abilities – how you interpret someone else’s song. So, first off, I try not to play it like Jimi. I never went to it and listened to the record. I just played the chords from my memory, and the rhythm, too. In fact, it’s nowhere near where he plays it. But it works for me – that’s my natural rhythm. So I’ve taken great liberties with that. Sometimes, I take that song and mix it with ‘The Thrill Is Gone’ or a Bobby Caldwell song, ‘What You Won’t Do For Love.’ Or something like that. And I also play a raga in the middle of it. So all that adds up to just sort of messing with a song in a way that people find fascinating. And the fact that it’s a banjo and it’s Jimi Hendrix, it’s already kind of cool, isn’t it?

 

DB: So it’s a good formula to start with?

 

HM: Yeah, it is. And it’s just about as far away as you can get from being normal. And, you know, it’s sort of an example of my approach in general. I try to find unique ways to play and unique instruments – anything that will sort of separate me from the herd. Because, you know, if you’re thinking of music as a career, you really need to do that. You need to stand out, but not by playing faster or louder or anything, but by doing your own thing that no one else can do. So I really look for ways to develop my own thing.

 

DB: But you obviously don’t do things just for the sake of doing them different. You find what works for you.

 

HM: Yeah, it’s like I play in D because I don’t know how to play in regular tuning. But I can play really good in D. So you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. I can’t play guitar like a lot of players play, but they don’t do exactly what I do. So this is how we get around competitiveness in the arts: we just sort of focus on uniqueness. And I really look at that as being very important. I started playing lap style on the street because there was three other guys playing guitar, and better than me in a normal fashion, but none of them played on their lap, so I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll try this.’ (laughs) And that worked well.

 

DB: Talk about how important the rhythm is to your music.

 

HM: You have to keep a groove going any way you can get that going. If you’ve got it in you, it’ll be there. But not everybody has that thing to make it swing, either. I can feel rhythms and I let them roll through me.

 

DB: You’ve been around quite a bit. Any favorite memories?

 

HM: I’ve met some of my heroes. You know, I was saying last night, I was playing in New York and I looked down and Springsteen was sitting right there. That was great. Jackson Browne, I met him a festival and he told me that he was a big fan of my music and I had a record on me and I told him, ‘Well, I’ve got a new one. I don’t know if you want to carry it around with you.’ And he grabbed it out of my hand and said, ‘Yeah, give me that.’ (laughs)

I get to meet a few people. These days I’m touring around with Richie Havens and he’s a great inspiration, he’s a folk legend, he was playing at Woodstock, that guy. So getting to meet some of those famous guys is great because I’m as much of a groupie and a fan of those guys as everybody. It’s nice that they sort of notice that I’m doing something, too. That feels great. That’s great inspiration.

The thing about it, if you get into position where a lot of people listen to your music, you find that you’re moving people, too, in great ways. You know, people write you letters and say, ‘My partner was ill and your music is the only thing that kept him going.’ Or, ‘Every time I hear that song, it hits me in the heart because my pet died.’ You know, you really just impact people with your music, and I think all of us do. When you get the feedback, you see that that’s why it’s even worth doing it from the start. That’s why you were sitting in your room when nobody could understand why you were practicing. That’s the reason right there. And you learn a lot through music if you keep your eyes open. You learn a lot about yourself and others. It’s a great journey. It’s a great vehicle for that, you know. You’ve got to have an open heart, and it’s all good.