“The blues tell a story. Every line of the blues has meaning.” — John Lee Hooker
Bollywood trailblazer Ehsaan Noorani, part of Bollywood’s most formidable composer trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, is also one of India’s most underrated blues players. The blues, he says, are the foundation of modern-day rock & roll. Performers who got into rock music soon discovered that the journey to the blues is par for the course to get a full understanding of context, form and sound. The journey in India takes a slightly different route.
“Indians,” says Noorani, “have a strong sense of acceptance and faith in what they believe is preordained. It’s this that makes them rarely sing about their woes the way the bluesmen have in America. So, on paper, there is the same oppression, hardship, cruelty and more. But, musically, the expression in India is through more regional sounds and genres.”
As the Mahindra Blues Festival (MBF) gets ready to host its eighth edition on February 10 and 11, blues performers from India and the world are gathering in Mumbai.
Driving force
As a musical metaphor for America, the blues started as the musical expression of African-Americans and soon became the driving force of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, before evolving into the soundtrack of the American social fabric.
Originating in the cotton fields where black slaves toiled, the blues’ uncomplicated lyrical structure that is as rhythmic as its percussion, decidedly bent notes, lending the genre its distinct hue. The typical 12-bar blues progression made it easy to communicate within the community and connect musically with those outside of it. Improvisation was key, and it welcomed anyone with a love for pure music, without the stifling limitations of disciplined, structured music.
The blues today is no longer the black man’s journey, and in India the early work laid out by guitarists like Babu Choudhury, Neel Chattopadhyaya (Joint Collaboration, Atomic Forest), Shillong’s legend Lou Majaw and subsequently Rudy Wallang has paved the way for a mini blues revolution.
Brian Tellis, the director of Fountainhead Promotions and Events, hosts The Mahindra Blues Show with Brian Tellis on Radio One. A central figure in the country’s radio and advertising industries, Tellis has worked closely to give India’s blues scene much traction.
Battling the blues
He says, “The blues is the most honest expression of ideas, emotions and sound. Sure, there are characteristics typical of the genre, but the beauty lies in its democratic, genre-agnostic nature. The emotions that triggered the blues revolution in the first place find resonance in India too. Pain is universal. But even as the genre has evolved the world over, it manifests in various derivatives. It’s no different in India.”
Rudy Wallang’s journey to the blues was a happy accident. When he first started playing music semi-professionally in the early 80s, he unknowingly played songs that were deeply influenced by the blues.
“It was in 1993-94 that I decided to unlearn everything I had learned until then. I had listened to Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones etc. and being interested in the guitar, would read up about them and I discovered this path that would lead me back to Robert Johnson, Son House, Lightning Hopkins, Memphis Minnie and so on.”
Wallang was up against major odds. His decision to focus on the blues ran parallel with the pre-MTV boom generation that largely listened to cover bands, and then came the MTV/ Channel V era, where attractive music videos trumped quality music. It was a uniquely superficial time in the Indian English music scene, and Rudy knew that young people would quickly relegate the blues as ‘old people’ music.
Simple sound
“When I decided to form Soulmate with Lil Mama Tips (Tipriti Kharbangar),” he says, “people said that we didn’t stand a chance. But I was determined to take this ‘simple’ heartfelt musical form and play it out to whoever would listen. That was 15 years ago….” Today, Soulmate remains one of the most important architects of the blues scene in India, synonymous with powerful guitar and soulful vocals. “Rudy’s decision,” says Noorani, “to form Soulmate as an all-blues/ soul band in early 2000 gave the genre a major impetus in India.”
One of the other architects and unarguably one of India’s finest guitar players is Warren Mendonsa. Playing as Blackstratblues, he prefers to let his guitar do the talking. He was most famous as the immensely talented guitarist of Mumbai rock outfit Zero.
He says, “Interestingly, what initially attracted me to the blues was the British take on it in the late 1960s. The music crossed an entire ocean and transcended geographical, social and racial boundaries, and still found relevance.
To me, the blues is open enough to let every performer bring a lot of themselves into it. In fact, without the honesty of expression, it loses a lot of its charm — you wouldn’t want to see a blues song performed note for note like a classical piece.”
Guitar refuge
It’s perhaps this honesty of sound and a stellar dossier of local and international artists every year that makes Mumbai’s MBF a name to reckon with. While there are smaller blues festivals and shows across the country, MBF has become a kind of haven for every blues lover. This year, it will feature the grandfather of British blues, John Mayall, along with Coco Montoya, Walter Wolfman Washington and The Roadmasters, Layla Zoe, and Blackstratblues.
Says Owen Roncon, co-founder of Oranjuice Entertainment, the company that organises the fest every year, “The proficiency of the guitar player, the musicality of the songs, and the honesty of the lyrics have been the foundation of the blues in India.
While India does not have the cultural reference that the American blues do, it has highly skilled musicians who just want to tell a story. Today, various sub-genres such as blues rock and blues jazz keep the genre just as relevant and honest.” MBF is also held for two weekends a year in Chicago in the famous Buddy Guy’s Legends blues club, a testimony to its growing popularity.
The journey of MBF, in fact, is largely indicative of India’s blues journey. Says Roncon, “The early couple of years saw existing blues fans throng the festival. In its second wave, other music lovers realised that the blues is an extension of the genres they loved, they saw how much of modern music stems from it. In its third and current wave, MBF sees a mix of both these fans, along with fans of younger, contemporary blues musicians like John Mayer, Derek Trucks, etc.”
MBF, along with The True School of Music, also conducts contests for amateur blues musicians, giving the winner a chance to play on both days of the festival. Noorani, who has been a judge on the contest, believes there is immense talent in India waiting to be unearthed. “The blues lends itself to the singer-songwriter format. In today’s age, where the guitar solo is rapidly vanishing in modern rock, the blues is where budding guitarists take refuge. The contest throws up so many blues musicians from all over — the Northeast, Chennai, Delhi, Surat, you name it,” he says.
Social and cultural contexts notwithstanding, India’s blues identity is as rooted in melody, skill and honesty as the original American sound, making it as musical as it is emotional.
The author dabbles with being a mum, an editor, a music journalist, and a budding bass player.
Published - February 03, 2018 06:16 pm IST
