When you think of ‘spirituality’ in music, you might not expect one of its epicentres to be the Isle of Man, yet that’s where the grizzled mystic known as HARRY MANX originates from.
Admittedly, soul-cleansing grooves emanating from Harry’s blues-y, roots-crossover album ‘Bread & Buddha’ LP (pun definitely intended) are more Goa than Groudle Glen, but I guess that’s to be expected when you consider this veteran performer’s CV includes lengthy spells in Japan, Brazil and tutelage with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt in India, not to mention years of treading the boards in his adopted Canadian home.
Wittily (but not inaccurately) describing his sound as having a “Mysticsippi” flavour, Manx’s music is a blend of folk, pop and Delta blues with an icing of Gospel. He’ll easily curry favour with anyone who’s fallen for Ry Cooder or Jeff Healey down the years and he delivers his blues-y invocations with a grainy, lived-in voice akin to Mark Knopfler.
On paper, some of these references are not liable to float this writer’s boat, but in practice, it’s not hard to hear why Manx has been bestowed with accolades such as Maple Blues Awards and Juno nominations in Canada over the past few years. ‘Bread & Buddha’ is older and wiser, but it’s easy to relate to, oozes with gravitas and harbours a goodly percentage of radio friendly tunes to balance out its easy authenticity.
Thus, despite myself, I find myself struggling to find anything much wrong with ‘Bread & Buddha’. Songs like ‘Nine Summers Lost’ and ‘Love is The Fire’ are slices of mystery-tinged blues-pop with an ambience recalling Dylan’s Daniel Lanois-produced ‘Oh Mercy’. ‘Walking Ghost Blues’ is a funky, gutbucket blues with a fine gruff’n’bleeding vocal and ‘Dew on Roses’ is a slow, languid ache of a thing with Harry’s National steel guitar slip slidin’ around a liquid melody and a fatalistic lyric (“all around us stars will burn/ and everyone in their turn”) which is impossible not to relate to.
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Elsewhere, Manx proves he’s got the tear-jerkin’ department all sussed out too. ‘Your Eyes Have Seen’ is a slow, descending, almost Tindersticks-style affair with a skeletal Spanish guitar solo and ‘Humble Me’ is the very epitome of gentle, enlightened sadness with the restraint and tenderness displayed by his band not only rare but also just about perfect in this context.
Funnily enough, despite the weight of authenticity around Manx’s neck, he’s less convincing on the record’s two covers. His take on Charley Patton’s ‘Moon Goin’ Down’ is pleasant and smoky, but has little of the original’s fire and brimstone, while ‘Long Black Veil’ has neither the atmosphere of The Band’s ‘...Big Pink’ take or the murderous intensity of either Johnny Cash or Nick Cave.
Yet when Manx’s Global blues takes in the best of east and west, it undoubtedly shines. To this end, witness the invocatory, hymn-like ‘Unspoken Quest’ or ‘True To Yourself’ where tablas, the 20-string Moheen Veena and a magnificent Natasha Atlas-style wail from Samidha Joglekar all assist a magnificent groove laced with Eastern promise. Not only is it refreshingly poppy, but it owes a damn sight more to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan than Kula Shaker. Both of which are right results in this world of cross-cultural overload.
Ultimately, while Harry Manx is hardly liable to appeal to the shiny pages of the NME and its like, he has a kind of ageless grace which will continue to be a hit with those who like their Blues troubadours to come with built-in crossover appeal. In the main, his ‘Bread & Buddha’ is nourishing spiritual fare.
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