Raga Guitar

Essence of Raga Tala is a unique and compelling take on Indian musical tradition; nine Indian ragas and selected talas are re-imagined for both traditional and western instruments in new and exciting directions.

Slide guitarist Harry Manx was born in the U.K., raised in Canada, and lived and worked in Europe and Japan before spending five years studying Indian slide guitar under the great Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. This is his first solo album, and as one might expect, it's a fascinating hodgepodge of differing musical traditions. Happily, Dog My Cat has none of the hippie-dippy multicultural piety that afflicts so many East-meets-West musical experiments – Manx's approach to the blues is gritty and straightforward, his original songs are tight and tuneful, and when he pauses to play a raga (as he does twice on this album), he manages to imbue the Indian musical form with a soulful depth that somehow has nothing and everything to do with the blues. Highlights are hard to identify on this album because its quality is so consistently high, but his rendition of the Muddy Waters standard "Can't Be Satisfied" is especially fine, as are his own "Love Ain't No Game" and the traditional "Reuben's Train."

To call Harry Manx a wizard of slide guitar is perfectly true, but not the whole story. Add banjo, harmonica, and the Indian veena to that, and you're approaching the real story. On Wise and Otherwise he demonstrates the full range of his talents, which are firmly based in the blues, but extend far beyond – all the way to Indian music, with his own "Raga Nat Bhariav," a short, but beautiful journey for the veena. As a writer he continues to improve by leaps and bounds, making songs like "Roses Given" fit well with his version of "Death Have Mercy" or his covers of "Crazy Love" and "Foxy Lady" (where his acoustic playing has all the intensity of an electric Hendrix).

Bringing together all his 1960s studio recordings plus demo and live recordings. With extensive sleeve note essay, original liner notes and a rare 2000 interview with Davy Graham. The godfather of British acoustic guitar, Davy Graham has had a tremendous influence on guitarists from Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Paul Simon to Jimmy Page, Graham Coxon and Bernard Butler. He studied music from India, the Middle East and North Africa to devise new tunings and ways of playing blues, jazz and English traditional music.