new article on Manx/Breit from Guitar Player..

[DevO]

http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?sectioncode=4&storycode=18821

Harry Manx and Kevin Breit

By Michael Ross | July 2007

The match of Harry Manx and Kevin Breit was made in guitar heaven. Both are based in Canada, each is comfortable playing virtually anything with strings, they each possess a personal approach to slide guitar, and though unmistakably roots-based players, they are equally at home ranging far from country and blues. They also share the rare attribute of being virtuosos with distinctive instrumental voices, but small enough egos to blend beautifully into a cohesive sound. The duo’s new record, In Good We Trust [stony Plain], incorporates elements of blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, electronic, and Indian music, into a soulful stew that manages to be simultaneously laid-back and intense.

Born on the Isle of Man (it’s near Ireland), Harry Manx came to Canada as a child. Since then, his travels have led him from Europe to Japan to Australia. His travel companion is a 1972 Martin D35 that he employs as a lap-slide. He prefers this to a Dobro or National because, as he puts it, “I like the bass end more than on a resonator guitar. It’s fitted with a Sunrise pickup and run through a Presonus Eureka preamp, and a Midas 16 channel mixer that I have on stage beside me.â€

Hearing an Indian lap guitar called the Mohan Veena on a recording by Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (who created the 20-stringed instrument) led to a 12-year stay in India, where he met Bhatt, and became a student of his son, Salil Bhatt. Manx’s Mohan Veena is equipped with a B Band system. He also plays a six-string Gold Tone banjo that “has a DiMarzio pickup rammed in tight under the bridge,†and a Johnny Lowe cigar-box guitar with an active humbucker. All his instruments are strung with Elixir strings, gauged .016 to .056.

“I play exclusively in open D,†says Manx. “It’s D, A, D, F#, A, D from the bass end. This tuning allows me to accompany myself with chords while plucking at the melody on the higher strings. Sometimes, I’ll drop the F# down to F to get a Dm tuning. I tune all my six string instruments this way. The Mohan Veena is tuned to everything. All the notes of the western scale are found there—plus a few that we don’t have!â€

Kevin Breit has released more than a dozen records—some under his own name—with entire records devoted to just the mandolin or banjo families. Other albums feature his instrumental quartet, The Sisters Euclid, burning its way through Booker T meets Danny Gatton-style instrumentals. Breit has also toured the world—mostly lending his tasteful, yet inventive accompaniment talents to singers such as Nora Jones, k.d. lang, and Cassandra Wilson. A natural who grew up in the Canadian wilds with a guitarist father, Breit navigates between the opposite tunings of guitar and mandolin and open tunings for slide with remarkable facility.

“Going from fifths to fourths or open tunings at first played with my mind,†he admits. “But all those instruments have different physical feels, weights, and sounds, so my brain makes the transition fairly easily. I prefer to play slide in open tunings because it sounds better, and my instruments resonate more.â€

However, Breit manages to avoid any of the usual open tuning clichés, composing solos that are melodic and linear rather than based on the typical tuning boxes.

The two guitarists met at a Folk Alliance conference in 2000. The festival schedulers placed Manx and Breit’s band, Folk Alarm, in the same workshop tent.

“I recall not being blown away by anything I was seeing—until I walked into a small room where Kevin was playing behind a singer,†says Manx. “I didn’t even notice the singer, because I kept watching his hands and thinking, ‘Now I’m finally blown away!’ This guy would challenge me musically if I was to play with him.â€

This initial introduction led to their first collaboration—2003’s Jubilee [Northern Blues]. Manx supplied J.J. Cale-style vocals and Indian drones that make their instrumental version of “Taking It To The Streets†sound like the Doobie Brothers in Bombay. Breit contributed the modern reharmonization chords behind the traditional “Diving Duck Blues,†and a manic soloing style that keeps the proceedings from getting too sleepy. While Jubilee occasionally sounded like a Manx record with Breit accompaniment, In Good We Trust is more consistently a full partnership.

“Going into this recording knowing what we do about each other made a huge difference,†says Manx. “Kevin wrote one song with my singing in mind, and I always considered his playing as I was creating my own songs.â€

“In Good We Trust is more about our own compositions,†adds Breit.

True enough. Aside from a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,†and an adaptation of the traditional “Death Have Mercy,†the remainder of the tunes are all originals, and on the four instrumentals both men get to show their stuff as players. Live and in the studio, Manx and Breit create an amazingly full sound with no additional musicians.

“I think we’re both interested in how much juice we can squeeze out of this setup of just the two of us,†Manx relates. “On stage, I play a kick drum and snare with my feet, and I use a lot of bass on my guitar, so I’m pretty much the rhythm section behind Kevin.â€

“We didn’t feel we needed a rhythm section on either record because we both wanted the sound to be intimate,†says Breit.

It also helps that both players have rhythm chops as strong as their lead prowess. As to the division of string labor, they agree that, at this stage in their musical development, it is largely intuitive.

“We never discuss much,†says Manx. “It all happens spontaneously in the studio.â€

“We try and fill out the orchestra,†Breit elaborates. “If Harry plays a low banjo part, I’ll play a high mandolin part.â€

Breit’s list of instruments for In Good We Trust reads like the inventory list of a small, really cool music store: a 1964 Telecaster, a Strat cobbled together from various parts, a Harmony Stratotone, a Gibson LG2, a National Style-O steel guitar, a Flatiron mandolin, a Gibson mandocello, a Gibson mandola, a National mandolin, a National tenor guitar, and a 1962 Fender Vibrolux amp. He uses cut steel pipe for slide, and D’Addario strings

The convergence of these two talents has created a hybrid that often sounds like Ravi Shankar meets Mississippi John Hurt—with a little jazz and rock tossed in for good measure.

“Indian musicians and blues musicians—well, musicians of any genre for that matter—play and practice all their lives,†says Breit. “It’s all heart and soul.â€

“There are ragas that sound bluesy, and there are ways to bend strings while playing blues that sound Indian,†adds Manx. “I may be forcing the relationship between the two musical cultures, but I keep thinking they were made for each other. That idea leads me to more and more experimentation, and the journey has been great so far.â€

[bouche]

nice find!