Feelin’ the Blues

Long considered an elder generation’s musical nostalgia trip, the Blues as a genre, is finding a lot of favour with the youth, and the growing number of bands that play the Blues are testimony to that. The Mahindra Blues Festival, professional courses with a Blues focus, more eateries organising ‘Blues Nights’, Blues talent hunts in the city are all indicative of a growing climate of the blues in the city. The Mumbai Age spoke to festival organisers, musicians, teachers and enthusiasts to see how the genre seems to have found a whole new generation of fans in the city, and what contributes to its enduring appeal.

Celebrating the Blues One of the major catalysts in the growth of the Blues scene has been the Mahindra Blues Festival, which was started six years ago. And with every passing year, say the organisers, the number of young attendees is growing.

Explaining why he thinks the genre is appealing to so many youngsters in the city today, Organiser Brian Tellis told us, “The Blues is a great storytelling genre — and everyone loves great storytelling that’s one reason why people connect with it, including the youth. The second reason is that most people misunderstand the Blues for the 12-bar Blues, but Blues bleeds onto Soul, R&B, Blues Rock, Jazz, Rock and so on. In our festival, we have had these talented young artists whose source of writing is from the Blues, and more and more youths are realising that fact. It’s a misconception that Blues is an old fuddy-duddy form of music.”

New kids on the block For the very first time this year, the MBF had organised a talent hunt for budding Blues bands — and received 32 entries. Young musicians like Kanchan Daniel and the Beards, the Kamakshi Khanna Collective and Lal and the People impressed judges like Ehsaan Noorani and made it to the finals of the Blues Band Hunt.

Ehsaan tells us that the fact that the winning band — Lal and the People — hails from Bhopal, says it all about the reach of the Blues. “This is probably possible because of the kind of exposure they have got through Internet. And I’m really glad that this is happening, especially in India. Ten-12 years ago, there were a lot of bands whose material would be based on the Blues, but there were no Blues bands per se... But now there are more concentrated, proper Blues bands as opposed to retro rock bands influenced by Blues.”

A return to the roots Ehsaan also believes that the resurgence of interest in the Blues probably has something to do with the return to retro music by a lot of young listeners. “The thing is that all the modern music that we listen to, be it jazz, rock, pop, leaving out classical naturally, it all comes from the Blues. And a lot of kids are listening to old music. In fact, some of the sell out concerts all over the world are retro rock concerts and not even by the new people. And with YouTube and the kind of exposure (the Web provides, young listeners now have access to) musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton, all of whom were basically Blues guitar players. And once one is into it, it’s almost kind of addictive,” he says.

On the cultural calendar Noted music writer Sunil Sampat believes that the “long history” of Blues, the liking that people have had for this music “generations after generations” certainly has a part to play in keeping young listeners interested in the genre.

But with a major celebration of the Blues becoming a high-profile part of the city’s cultural calendar, Sampat feels the resurgence of interest was natural. “In the ’70 and ’80s in Mumbai, there used to be the Jazz Yatra, and that used to be on everybody’s social calendar. And people would be there; they would listen to the music. I think the Mahindra Blues Festival has taken that slot now; it is that one thing to go to where you connect with people and listen to music. It’s a win-win situation for all,” he says.

Sampat also highlights another interesting detail — that the standing-room only venue (Mehboob Studios) for the MBF means the event is frequented less by the over-50 crowd, and more by the younger set. “I think it is designed more like a contemporary rock concert and that’s why you wont find too many people over 50, because of the physical discomfort,” he says.

Teaching the Blues Among those who’re certainly glad about the interest in the Blues among young music lovers is Ashutosh Phatak, co-founder of The True School of Music. Faculty from TSM perform at the NCPA’s Jazz and Blues series, in addition to teaching their students the grammar of the genre. Says Ashu, “When I was growing up, the Blues scene was relegated to my living room. I am so thankful for bands like Soulmate, artists like Warren Mendonsa, and festivals like the Mahindra Blues so that I can now get out of my house and listen to some Blues.”

“The Blues are fundamental; you start with it you end with it. It is the core of every form of music. From punk to jazz, hip hop to funk it penetrates any genre. So no matter what you’re starting with or what kind of musician you are, the blues will influence your creative spark. It all starts with and ends with the Blues The nature of Blues is such that it allows the younger generation to adapt it to their own expression, and they always have the roots to fall back on, because the Blues will never go out of style.”

MUSICIAN-SPEAK

Warren Mendonsa of Blackstratblues, one of the best Blues outfits in the country, says: Blues is a raw form of music and it can be easily personalised, which means you can easily express through it with not so much technicalities. For some kinds of music you need to study large amounts of theory and scale and practise a lot. The thing about Blues is that you can do all of that but what makes you a good Blues musician is your ability to emote, which is something that can’t really be taught. So as long as people remain human, that form of expression will always be parallel.

I’m not really a purist and I love taking different forms of music and try to put my own spin on it. But it is important for Blues to be kept alive in its pure form. There needs to be some point of reference to its roots. So both the traditional and adding new things to it are equally important — you can’t really have one without the other.

Kanchan Daniel from Kanchan and The Beards says: Blues is a genre that a lot of people do associate with older people, and think of as “old music”. But I think the trend has been changing and there are lots of bands like mine and Lal and the People, who are essentially trying to bring back a genre that is dying, and we are trying to revive it in a way that it also appeals to today’s audience. I feel that youth of today is becoming more open to the genre and are going out to watch Blues bands and listening to the music. So, in a way they are building a niche slowly in a scene that is completely dominated by electronic music.