After 20 albums in 20 years, Covid forced Salt Spring Island blues musician Harry Manx off the road and into a well deserved break.
But now he is back to crossing the country in the dead of winter. While his Winnipeg gig got cancelled because of a winter storm, Manx is looking forward to returning to Lethbridge to play the Geomatic Attic on Saturday, April 16.
He was last here in 2019 to play the Wide Skies Music festival with Steve Marriner.
“I’ve been touring for 30 or 40 years and released 20 albums in 20 years, so it was nice to just be able to relax in Canada. I even rediscovered some of my own music. I had a lot of time to play,” said Manx, driving ahead of the storm before he pulls into Saskatoon for a gig at the Broadway theatre.
“ I was in Edmonton and listening to CKUA and they were playing a couple of songs. I thought ‘hey, those are really great songs. Wait a second, that was me,” he said adding he didn’t recognize “ Dew on Roses’ and ‘ Nine Summers Lost.’
“ I had a lot of time to practice, so I learned them again,” he said.
His last CD was 2019’s “Faith Lift,” a collaboration with a string quartet in Sydney , Australia.
“ I’m not particularly fond of classical music, but I love the sound of strings,” Manx said, adding he impressed with the skill classical musicians have in reading music.
“ That’s amazing. I learned how to play by playing on the street. I’ve played with string quartets before. I may have only met them a few hours before, but they have the charts and these guys can step right in play it, ” he said.
“It’s really cool to play with them. And they they think it’s cool and hip to play blues music,” he enthused, adding he hasn’t considered doing a tour with a string quartet.
“ Most of them are members of their city’s symphony orchestras, so they don’t travel well. They like to perform shows close to home, he said adding he works with string quartets in major cities like Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal and Toronto.
He is also planning on making another CD with the string quartet in Sydney Australia.
While he considers himself to be a blues musician, he is best known for playing the Mohan Veena, a 20 string East Indian instrument.
“ I’ve always had one foot in the blues, but the other is in Eastern and world music,” he noted.
“I’ve found that blues audiences are really open to hearing something new , if you can take it in a new direction,” he said.
“ I put a spin on ‘Spoonful’ by playing it on the Mohan Veena,’ though it is hard to do better than Willie Dixon,” he sad.
While he enjoyed having some down time, he is just as excited about being back on the road.
“I’ve done a lot of winter touring in Canada. Because that’s when people ant to be inside a theatre,” he said, adding audiences are slowly starting to return to shows.
“People are still cautious about it. Shows are at about 60 per cent,” he said having a live audience to feed off of is an integral part of his experience.
“I did a couple shows in empty theatres over Covid. It was just me playing to an empty theatre and a couple of technicians. I really realized how important having a live audience is,” he observed.
“ It really feels good to be back on the road,” he continued.
“People really miss live music. It plays an important soundtrack in what happens in their lives so it’s nice to experience that again,” he continued, adding he is going to tour out to Montreal and catch a flight to Europe, where he will spend October through December touring Germany and Italy.
He is going to play songs from throughout his career at the Lethbridge show.
“Most people like to hear things they’ve heard before, so I’ve got about two songs from each album,” he said.
“ We’re going to have a good time together,” he said.
Harry Manx plays the Geomatic Attic, Saturday, April 16 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $45.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
