Story and Photo by L. Jaye, Artist, Journalist and Photographer.
It’s the week after Valentines Day, and I’m still in love. It’s a different state of being for me, but I’m going with it. I’m infatuated, head over heels for the sound of someone new in my ears whose music has taken hold of my heart.
I’m in love with a fresh combination of acoustic genius flowing from the fingers of Harry Manx.
The live show grabbed my heart from the first note onstage at the Strand Theatre in Rockland, Maine last Saturday night. After the show, Harry was kind enough to gift me with four of his CDs, two of which are live recordings.
We talked for a while after the show, about his life and experiences in India, and how he came to be in Rockland, Maine. We’ll hear that on the podcast, but you must know that for the last 4 days I’ve spent the better part of the day and night baptizing my ears with his music.
There’s nothing worse than a new convert, but after 72 hours of aural pleasure, I’m hooked. The more I listen, the more I grow into it, relax with it, and let it tumble gently to splash into my soul. Yep, the signs are all there. This is what happens when I fall in love with music.
All the right elements of previous successful musical relationships are present: Intelligent lyrics – just enough to strike a chord in the brain and make you think – paired with the gentle plucking of a six string banjo, the mystical East Indian visions of the Mohan Veena, six string lap guitar and yes, softly played harmonica. Here’s proof that even the harshest instrument can be tamed in the master’s hands. The occasional instrumental raja is also offered, a perfect accompaniment for vision questing.
One can meditate, sun saturate or slowly swirl gyrate while listening to Harry Manx, or light a candle and lose yourself staring into the flame.
Its tub worthiness has yet to be tested, but it’s not tough to imagine it will fare well.
Harry’s music is captivating. It whisks me to another level, another plane of existence, soaring on a magic melody carpet, a transcendental Zen experience of blues as I’ve never heard them before. Yes, I said Blues, as in the blues. You read it right.
Harry is a prolific songwriter with a gift for expounding upon the music of others.
The problem with covers is that most of the time, the new version can’t possibly live up to the original.
“Freebird” might be the most requested encore anthem of the last 30 years, but until the drumming genius of Artemis Pyle brings your awareness to the level of excellence demanded by the song as it was written to be played, there simply aren’t others who can touch it.
The best cover songs incorporate a respectful nod to the song’s maker, freshly minted by the indelible sound of the current musician. Truly successful covers are renewed and reshaped into new levels of music brilliance that make their original owners proud. Listening to Manx’s live recorded version of “Voo Doo Child”, on Harry Manx & Friends Live at the Glenn Gould Studio, I see Hendrix nodding his rainbow crocheted head out of a smoke cloaked, hookah laden room. His body is suspended, lightly floating over a nest of pillows scattered across a Persian carpet. Lost in thought as the song opens with 6 string lap played banjo, Tablas, and a harmonica tease, this song lets him know: This is a different kind of trip.
Its East India heaven meets West Delta earth, the combination a swirling magic carpet ride to Mallhampuram with Mohan Veena, harmonica and 6 string banjo strapped firmly in the driver’s seat.
After the first verse, a harmonica solo takes us soaring for a moment, lightly climbing, to drop gently into the hypnotic trance woven by the Tablas, Manx’s fingerings and slides on the banjo, and the East Indian scat of Indian vocalist, Samidha. After the second verse, the harmonica is back to prelaunch us further into the ethos, accompanied by a deeper, finger led banjo trance. It’s a nine minute trip into enlightenment.
Jimmy picks up his head, slowly sucks in a deep breath and says, “Play it again, man.” The layers of Harry’s songs are an intoxicating, transfixing, an eagle glide medicine vision into higher realms, a 3D glance into at the larger picture to experience what human eyes won’t envision in real time. It grooves, it lives, it breathes on its own, powered by the classical traditions of old and the courage of new.
A relative newcomer to the acoustic scene, Manx went to India in 1988, on a trip he’s never quite returned from. For 12 years, he learned to make sense of the music, studying under spiritual Masters and gradually learning to unlock the mysterious vault of East Indian music. He also learned to meditate and to figure out “who” was within. Harry continued on to play music for the commune when his teacher left his body. After several years, He met and studied with his second Master, classical musician Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. The best teachers know when the student is ready to operate on lessons learned. In 2000, Bhatt told him he had taught him all he knew, Manx went to British Columbia to pay his dues on the streets. While making living playing blues-infused Indian rajas on the corners of Vancouver, he gathered enough funds for a one day studio session, an investment in himself that eventually netted 50,000 sales of his first CD, Dog My Cat, and the Canadian Independent Music Award for Blues Album of the Year 2002. Not a bad response for a 45 year old first timer.
Ten years, eleven CD’s and a DVD later, he’s spending time on the touring circuit with the likes of Richie Havens, traveling the globe from British Columbia to Australia, and Quebec to Nova Scotia with an occasional dip down to U.S. Northern states. He’ll go further South to appear at Merlefest in May. If you’re lucky enough to be in a town where he’s onstage, do whatever you can to make the show. If not, head to his website online store right now and order up so you won’t miss out.
Harry’s website is http://www.harrymanx.com/
Discography:
Bread and Buddah – 2009
Harry Manx & Friends Live at the Glenn Gould Studio, 2007
In Good We Trust – with Kevin Breit – 2007
Mantras for Madmen – 2005
West Eats Meet – 2004
Harry Manx Live: Road Ragas 2003
Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot Various Artists “Bend in the Water” 2003
Johnny’s Blues: A Tribute to Johnny Cash Various Artists “Long Black Veil” 2003
Jubilee – with Kevin Breit – 2002
Wise and Otherwise – 2006
Dog My Cat – 2000 – Winner, Canadian Independent Music Awards Blues Album of the Year
Wild About Harry: Live at the Basement – DVD – Recorded live in Sydney, Australia
