> MAHINDRA BLUES FESTIVAL
You don’t choose the blues,” says guitarist Rudy Wallang of the genre he and vocalist Tipriti Kharbangar of Soulmate have mastered over the last decade and a half. “The blues choose you.” When the Mahindra Group decided to launch a blues festival in India in 2010, the Shillong-based band — by then two albums old and a fixture at various major gigs — was the first to be contacted.
“The simplicity and honesty of it” is what drew Wallang to the blues, and while songs typically involve playing only three chords, revealing your heart and soul in them is incredibly difficult, he observes. The success of Soulmate and the emergence of blues events have encouraged more musicians in the country to become possessed by the blues. At the Mahindra blues band hunt this year, Quiet Storm, a band from Jowai, Meghalaya won. Musicians in towns across India have taken to the form, which first developed from the experience of black slaves in white America who poured both pain and hope into song. Growing up in Bhopal, Rohit Lalwani listened to the Chicago, Texas and Memphis blues, and recruited a bassist and drummer to his amateur band in a town where familiarity with the genre was scant. Very often, the appeal of the genre itself is so strong, it becomes the subject. Lalwani’s Lal and the People sing about having a “bad case of blues”.
Arinjoy Sarkar, who used to play pop tunes on his guitar in his early teens, found the sound he was looking for when Amyt Dutta, a Kolkata-based blues veteran, introduced him to B B King. Sarkar’s blues trio won the band hunt two years ago for compositions such as “Cold Cold Cold” and “Don’t you leave me behind”. Lalwani and Sarkar will be part of a Homegrown Blues Collective, set to debut at the Mahindra Blues Festival this year. They will play alongside established names such as Soulmate, Ehsaan Noorani, and Loy Mendonsa. Also sharing that stage is Kanchan Daniel, a psychology professor who took to writing blues songs some years ago after fighting off cancer.
Buddy Guy, a stalwart of the Chicago Blues generation, participated in the festival several times, enthused by the idea of taking the blues to new shores. He is headlining this year, too, along with other international acts Keb Mo, Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, and the young duo Larkin Poe. For Mahindra, the idea to promote blues was born of a desire to connect with communities in the Mississippi Delta in the United States, where the blues originated and where the company sells its tractors. Jay Shah, vice president of cultural outreach at Mahindra, says audiences in Mumbai have warmed to the genre. “In this city, people struggle with a smile on the lips. It fits with the spirit of the music.” The band hunt attracts talent from cities such as Surat and Kalimpong. Likewise, young American blues artists spotted by Buddy Guy’s club Legends in Chicago are invited to play in Mumbai. While the budding Indian blues artists are making a name for themselves, they are still modest enough to be replying individually to Youtube comments. Their following is limited but intimate. They have to record and produce their own albums, and shoot videos at home. “The hard part is it is still very DIY,” says Sarkar, who has been releasing one video a month. “The good part is you are independent and free to do what you want.”