'The Raga Blues' Concert at the Parlor Room Features the 12-string Blues and Hindustani Slide Guitar of Ryan Lee Crosby & Joel Veena, June 6
On Saturday, June 6 at 7:30pm, the Parlor Room at 32 Masonic St in Northampton, MA presents a unique double-bill with masterful guitarists Ryan Lee Crosby and Joel Veena. Titled 'The Raga Blues', each will perform a set of original and traditional music, accompanied by percussion including tabla and calabash gourd, and share the stage for a unique finale: fusing the Mississippi Delta-blues 12-string guitar stylings of Crosby with the rich ornamentation of Veena's 20-stringed Indian slide guitar. Tickets start at $24 and are on sale now from ParlorRoom.org. Ticket prices increase the day of the show and will be available at the door, all ages are welcome. Doors at 7pm, show at 7:30pm.
Ryan Lee Crosby is currently based in Rhode Island, but his musical heart is in Mississippi. He has released numerous albums, toured internationally and is a leading practitioner of the Bentonia School of rural Delta blues. Smithsonian Magazine praised his ability to "bring influences from Africa and India to the Bentonia sound.” Under the tutelage of the last of the Bentonia, MS bluesmen, 77-year-old Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, Crosby studies the Bentonia style. The Bentonia blues, which Holmes learned from the form’s originator Henry Stuckey as well as Jack Owens, depends upon a minor key open guitar tuning called crossnote and is often accompanied by falsetto singing. Its most famous exponent, Skip James, had stopped Crosby in his tracks when Ryan first heard the sound. Crosby develops the style in his own way, using a 12-string electric guitar. “Playing with Jimmy and learning from him,” Crosby says, “it’s the joy, it’s the process, it’s the connection and transcendence and what feels to me like a fulfillment of life’s purpose.”
Hailing from a small village in southeastern Vermont, Joel 'Veena' Eisenkramer is one of the foremost exponents of the 20-stringed Indian slide guitar. His music defies categorization as he presents meditative classical North Indian ragas that blossom into blistering duets with tabla virtuosos in the same set as beat-driven original songs with live-looping and poetic lyrics. Recognized by the government of India in 2023 for his contribution to Indian music on the global stage, Joel's music seeks to heal and empower his audiences to "do the needful" in terms of facing the every day challenges of the modern world; spreading the message that mindful listening to Hindustani ragas can help us improve our attention span and nourish a rich interior life. He is the only North American performer of the Indian slide guitar to tour regularly in India and his concert tours have brought him all around the world; performing and teaching in a variety of settings including at Smith College, Delhi Public School and the California College of the Arts. With 12 self-produced studio albums and music featured on Radio New Zealand, Shemaroo Entertainment and MyGov India, he is one of the most prolific artists in the genre.
The Raga Blues on June 6 will feature the percussion accompaniment of Grant Smith, on the calabash gourd, and Yousuf Kerai on the tabla. The concert is the first collaboration of new musical friends, Crosby and Veena, exploring the intersections of their respective styles. "The blues is a lot like its own raga," explains Joel Veena, "There's a scale, an ornamentation style, a strong mood and atmosphere...And I've studied a bit of the blues and Ryan has studied North Indian music on the slide guitar as well. We share an aesthetic in a lot of ways: richly atmospheric, driving guitar music..." Audiences can expect to be treated to a deeply rooted and dynamic musical evening, combining 12-string Bentonia blues and Hindustani slide guitar for the first time on stage.