What a joyful, musical time it was joining (from left to right in the picture) Ramkumar Mishra, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Salil Bhatt for the adventures we had in Slide to Freedom.
This picture was taken while we were recording our first CD, just outside of Edmonton. We made 3 albums in total and each one is certainly worthy of it's own story.
For this, our first album, we set up to record in a lovely, very comfortable old barn and we had the master, recording-wiz Miles Wilkinson, set up his gear and record for us. Miles has worked on some of the definitive albums in roots music history but you would never know it working with this quiet, modest man.
I think it's a lovely way to record; set up a studio in some far-out space that turns the recording itself into a once-only event for everyone involved. I have made a few albums with Miles this way and they have always turned out to be wonderful and unique experiences. Recording in studios is a blast as well, but sometimes they can feel a bit sterile.
The guitar I am holding above was made by my dearly departed friend, Bill Little. I met Bill when I was teaching at a music camp in England called Sore Fingers and we becamce fast friends. The instrument is a metal weissenborn style instrument; highly unusual, and sounds like it comes from another planet. The sound of that guitar joining with the beautiful instruments and playing of my friends from India is like no other.
One thing we did when we collaborated, which I still think was what gave us our own sound; was that we met in the middle of our musical experiences. In other words, I didn't try to sound like them and they didn't try to sound like me. There were some challenging moments for sure, but the spirit of sharing music outweighed everything. We had a lot of laughs as well
I remain very grateful to Fred Litwin (Northern Blues Records) for believing in us and supporting us through the few short years we were together.
There are a few videos out there from our recording and shows on youtube ~ and we did make 3 albums (one nominated for a JUNO). I hope one day, we get to to it again!
ARTWORK BY A MAN CALLED WRYCRAFT
