West Eats Meet

Harry Manx

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 20, 2004)
• Original Release Date: May 17, 2005
• Number of Discs: 100
• Label: Dog My Cat Records
• ASIN: B00025DZ9G
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #112,144 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

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. Manx's instrumentals are always ingenious takes on sitar-like phrasing, note bending and melodies and the two offered here Forgive and Remember and Hector s Song don't disappoint. Where early records like Dog My Cat and Wise and Otherwise often separated the blues material from the Indian-influenced material, West Eats Meet makes an effort to merge them on nearly every song. Tabla and Dholak add basic but fundamental percussion, complimenting Manx's steady backbeat accent on his guitar strings, and not only does he play his Mohan Veena and tambura on many tracks, he even sings in a raga style on The Ways of Love. This is the album's greatest strength as it highlights what really makes Manx a unique artist. Very few people are making this sort of world folk blues fusion and if Harry Manx continues steeping this melting pot, the world will have to take notice of this innovator soon. --Exclaim! Magazine

Product Description

West Eats Meet is Harry Manx's much anticipated fifth album. Harry's serene solo sound is enhanced with decorative elements of tabla, dholak and keys, along with backing vocals of newcomer Emily Braden and Australian trio The Heavenly Lights. Ten new original songs delve into Harry's experiences from Rajasthan to Toronto to Brazil and beyond.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Further On...Further In, October 19, 2005

By	applewood (everywhere and nowhere) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

.....Another great release from Harry....

He says that this is his blending of American Gospel with his Indian Raga Blues. I didn't know what to expect, but the "gospel" sound is only really strong on one song (Sittin' on Top of the World, done in a light upbeat way). What is noticable, is the lyrics seem more upfront here. While Harry plays his usual tasteful mix of Lap Slide Guitar, Mohan Veena, Banjo, Harmonica and Tamboura, he also utilizes female backup vocals (rich and beautiful), keyboards, and tabla and other percussions, but puts these all backseat to supporting the songs. The result is a pop/R&B sound like Van Morrison at his mellow best. The instrumental fills are more Indian sounding (Mohan Veena slide and Tabla). These are spiritual blues or blues washed in light, the gospel part is that the intent is a blending of East and West spiritual roots music.

These are deep and profound songs but packaged and delivered in an easy listening way. As he sings in Stir A Little Breeze, "The world is a tale, told by a fool...Come see real flowers, of this painful world, their numbers few...This ways' not for the blind"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "West Eats Meet" Is The One C.D. That I Take Everywhere!, December 4, 2004

By	Annie Frantz (Grand Rapids, Michigan) - See all my reviews

....I first saw Harry in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was mesmerized by his sound, I now watch his tour dates and call ALL of my friends from the East Coast to West Coast to inform them of his arrival in their cities and towns. Harry is not to be missed! But, if you can't see him live "West Eats Meet" is a phenomenal piece of work and the biggest sleeper of the year! A must have in your music library!

5.0 out of 5 stars Along with Road Ragas, this is where Manx hits his stride, July 5, 2009

By	Nobody important - See all my reviews

Along with Road Ragas, this is my favorite Harry Manx album because along with Road Ragas, this is where Manx puts together a truly cohesive sound that blends all of his influences together. Manx's debut, Dog My Cat, was interesting, but it lacked cohesion. Manx alternated between sounding like Kelly Joe Phelps (warm toned lap slide guitar and smokey vocals), and sounding like a student of V.M. Bhatt on the Mohan Veena (which, of course, he was). On his second album, Wise and Otherwise, he started to mix blues and Indian influences more, instead of simply alternating between the styles. That brilliant album was also characterized by some sonic experimentation (although mostly acoustic). Then, on a pair of albums, Road Ragas Live, and West Eats Meet, Manx pulled together a truly cohesive sound that mixed the best of everything he had done before. What sets these two gems apart as the best of Manx's recordings so far is the fact that everything just blends together seamlessly. Manx will start out with a KJP-type blues riff, and then emphasize the raga influence on his solos with some of the most subtle and beautiful slide work you have ever heard. Hindustani slide guitarists, like V.M. Bhatt or Debashish Bhattacharya (whom I prefer to Bhatt), understand the importance of microtonal nuances. Sometimes, what really matters is just perfect control over the slide bar on a very narrow range of pitches rather than a flashy riff that includes more notes per second than a human should be capable of playing. Manx applies that principle here, and the result is probably the most beautifully seamless blend of blues and ragas yet recorded. This recording goes side-by-side with Road Ragas as a masterpiece for that. As another reviewer observes, Manx claims a bit of gospel influence on this album as well, although that influence is *very* subtle, and mostly limited to the back-up vocals. Those vocals add a nice touch that might have been welcome on Road Ragas, but both albums are outstanding.

Further listening: Obviously, Kelly Joe Phelps (specifically, Lead Me On, Roll Away The Stone, and Shine Eyed Mister Zen). For other blends of Indian and Middle Eastern sounds with western forms, try Sandy Bull's Reinventions, Davy Graham's Folk, Blues and Beyond, Jonas Hellborg's The Word or Ars Moriende. With the exception of Graham, they have little blues influence, but they are wonderful examples of the potential to meld Eastern and Western sounds.