Kingsbury Manx

In a live setting at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Hary is joined by a dazzling array of musicians who perfectly complement his style, allowing the music to successfully venture all over the world map. Harry Manx built a career putting a unique spin on the blues, serving up his distinctive and hypnotic brew of Eastern and Western sounds to audiences worldwide. Combining the sensuality of traditional blues with transcendent Eastern sounds has become his trademark. It’s in a live setting that this bridge between “heavenly” India and “earthy” American blues is most effectively built. As Harry says, “My goal has always been to draw the audience as deep as possible into the music.”

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).

'Om Suite Ohm' is the first CD from Harry to feature his 'Bollywood style' electric slide techniques. Harry is joined by a fantastic group of musicians playing on Indian, African and western instruments. Produced by Harry Manx, Hans Christian (Daniel Lanois, Robbie Robertson) and Wynn Gogo,l recording began in Wisconsin in 2011. From there Harry went to Victoria, Australia to record then back to Vancouver Island Canada to finish the record. Guest musicians include Australian Didjeridoo player Ganga Giri (Peter Gabriel); African inspired musician Yeshe on co-writes, N'goni and vocals and Hans Christian on co-writes, bass, strings, percussion, nickelharp, sarangim cello and sitara. Harry sings and plays electric and acoustic slide, national steel, Mohan Veena, banjo and guitar. There are two covers on the record, the traditional "Reuben's Train" and the John Coltrane penned "Love Supreme" with additional lyrics by Harry. 'Om Suite Ohm' is Harry's 9th solo record.

'Om Suite Ohm' is the first CD from Harry to feature his 'Bollywood style' electric slide techniques. Harry is joined by a fantastic group of musicians playing on Indian, African and western instruments. Produced by Harry Manx, Hans Christian (Daniel Lanois, Robbie Robertson) and Wynn Gogo,l recording began in Wisconsin in 2011. From there Harry went to Victoria, Australia to record then back to Vancouver Island Canada to finish the record. Guest musicians include Australian Didjeridoo player Ganga Giri (Peter Gabriel); African inspired musician Yeshe on co-writes, N'goni and vocals and Hans Christian on co-writes, bass, strings, percussion, nickelharp, sarangim cello and sitara. Harry sings and plays electric and acoustic slide, national steel, Mohan Veena, banjo and guitar. There are two covers on the record, the traditional "Reuben's Train" and the John Coltrane penned "Love Supreme" with additional lyrics by Harry. 'Om Suite Ohm' is Harry's 9th solo record.

With each album Manx releases, his deep Indo-Canadian roots music becomes more defined and further accomplished. The title West Eats Meet is a play on Ravi Shankar's West Eats Meat, a nod both to an Indian musical giant and Manx's own western usage of Indian instruments, folk melodies and styles. Manx strays a bit from his standard blues idiom with this album and introduces gospel flavours with the help of backing singers Emily Braden and Australian trio the Heavenly Lights. The latter add depth and a churchy soul to The Great Unknown and, along with Manx's banjo, Sitting on Top of the World becomes a down from the mountain call to worship out of an as yet undiscovered Baptist/Hindu hymnal. One of two covers on the album, Sonny Boy Williamson's Help Me features an under pad of delicate drones and a slinky slide solo injecting a little Rajasthan into this Chicago standard…

Harry Manx’s life journey has taken him all over the map, both musically and literally. His ninth album, “Bread and Buddha”, is a musical meditation on the ephemeral nature of the human experience and is a culmination of thirty-five years of world exploration. Harry covers all four compass points of the world music map on this outing, from the rolling guitar groove on “Love is the Fire” and “Walking Ghost Blues”; he revisits traditional blues territory for the covers “Moon Goin’ Down” and “Long Black Veil” and blends in his trademark sensual raga flavours with “True to Yourself” and the instrumental “The Unspoken Quest”.