By: Rick Landers
Debashish Bhattacharya
Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya is a man on a mission to introduce the traditional and contemporary music of India to the Western World. As an ambassador of Indian music, Debashish has performed and recorded with such legendary artists of sound as guitarist extraordinaire, John McLaughlin, the masterful slide guitarist, Jerry Douglas, England’s guitar virtuoso, Martin Simpson, eclectic slide guitar mix-master, Derek Trucks, and African kora aficionado, Ballake Sissoko.
The honorable Bhattacharya has spread the word of Indian music for over fifty years, by performing around the world, developing and serving as a foundational educational hub for Indian slide guitar and the roots of Indian music culture. His ingenious inventiveness resulted in his design of four-stringed slide instruments, the Chaturangui, Ghandharvi, Anandi, and Pushpa Veena.
A child prodigy, Debashish, at three years old he began to explore an adult-sized Hawaiian lap steel guitar, then All India Radio invited him to play his debut performance when he was four. With parents who were both traditional Indian vocalists, his music interests were nurtured, and by the the time he reached the ripe old age of 15, Debashish designed his first guitar called a Chaturangui, as well as created his own genre of Hindustani Slide Guitar.
“Debashish Bhattacharya is the master of the slide guitar…he has no equal.” — John McLaughlin
“…there’s not much that manages to offer as transcendent an experrience as Bhattacharya does” – Quantara
“Strings flying everywhere, but always in full control.” – The Financial Times
As years went by, Debashish would continue to unleash the promise of stringed instruments by developing the, aforementioned four: Chaturangui – Ghandharvi – Anandi – Pushpa Veena (L-R, shown below).
His legacy of musical explorations covers 28 albums, including his most recent, Sound of the Soul, that captures the finest traditions of Indian music. Along with his albums and singles, Debashish has appeared on John McLaughlin’s, Remember Shakti, and Floating Point.
Check out all of Debashish Bhattacharya’s albums here!
The honorable Bhattacharya has been recognized for his vast achievements and contributions to both Indian music and world music. Not only has he earned two Grammy nominations, but has been included in the 2016 Songlines Magazine Top 10 and Billboards Top 10, named in the top 100 of Amazon’s albums, the Central Asia and Asia-Pacific world music Top 10, won a 2007 BBC Planet Award, the 2005 Asiatic Society Gold Medal, the 1984 President of India Gold Medal, been inducted into the World Music Hall of Fame (2022), but also has been named as an Empaneled Artist of the Indian government’s Indian Council of Cultural Relations.
Guitar International is very honored to meet and introduce our music enthusiasts to the highly respected artist-scholar-inventor-author and more, Debashish Bhattacharya.
Debashish and I worked out our respective times around the globe and arranged for a Zoom session, then when the time came we grabbed our favorite beverages…
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Rick Landers: There you are! [Laughs]
Debashish Bhattacharya: Hey, how are you? Good morning!
Rick: Morning Good afternoon, good evening, [Laughs] Hope you don’t mind. I’ve got coffee and water.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Fantastic. I’m having my Darjeeling tea.
Rick: Darjeeling tea. Do you know Roy Harper from England?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah, yeah, of course.
Rick: So, you must know his song about Tibetan tea, “Another Day,” Do you know that?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Rick: I can hear you great. Can you hear me? Okay?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Perfect.
Rick: Okay. Terrific. When you’re writing songs, do you prefer to write alone, or to collaborate with others?
Debashish Bhattacharya: When I write a song, I don’t write a song. The song comes to me. Okay. Then, only I write a song and my songwriting is really quick.
Within like three to five minutes, the basic structure is laid over and then it takes time. I look at it, I change here and there. Sure. I make it much better, more logically, sometimes more abstract, sometimes more surreal, more artistic input I add on. I keep on adding, but the song comes to me. Otherwise, I’m not like on a mission. No, it comes to me.
Rick: Okay. I’m usually noodling around with my guitar and something comes to me, as either words or it’s a riff or whatever. And from there, I start building the song. It pretty much comes natural to me.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Mm-Hmm.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Those things comes later after I configure the basic structure of the song. Mm-Hmm,<affirmative> then when I hear it, I play or sing. I hear places where the tabla should enter and how a little tabla should enter and where it soloes, and what should be the rhythmic pattern in the beginning and where the tabla should be really intricate and more exotic, more powerful and energetic, where a flute can do a baseline. Those things I hear later. If for collaboration, the final composition has places for playing together and for solo.
Rick: I’ve noticed that some of the songs, and maybe all of ’em, they start out fairly slow. It’s like the “Lotus” song, which is gorgeous in the beginning, and then it moves and it speeds up. And I just wonder if that is based on some type of philosophical foundation, where you’re doing almost like a feminine type of very beautiful thing, then you move into a more masculine approach?
Debashish Bhattacharya: First of all, to answer your question, I must tell this, that apart from my all collaborative albums, this one is a pure Indian classical music album. In such music it starts slow and spreads the melodic phrases through the scale, and improvisation grows intense.
Compositions are the gateway of each improv and improvs are used to ornament and highlight the composition. The tempo grows faster to energize the whole act. It is more like a theatrical act. Starts – grows – pick point – and ending.
Rick: Ah, okay.
Debashish Bhattacharya: And when I say that, that means in earlier centuries this music came from the temple music, almost the same as the choir music began in the church or early European temple. The melody and rhythm, lyric and singer with the group of accompaniments and audience developed togetherness in front of God and Goddesses and was basically an environment to give your best effort to meet the necessity for the praise of God and Goddesses in temple. From there this music has grown to today’s repertoire with lots of musical ideas and virtuosic contents added in it. Now it’s the general audience’s music.
Rick: You’re going on tour fairly soon, is that correct?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah.
Rick: You’re coming to the States
Debashish Bhattacharya: Little part.
Rick: Okay. So, do you think of all your music, do you find that this might be the most maybe approachable here and people will go, “Oh, okay, this Indian music”, which we don’t hear very much here, and that you think it will get some traction for you?
Debashish Bhattacharya: This is what I have served, delivered to most of the audience in India or abroad for four decades, Indian classical music. But, I always have a bouquet of musical ideas and improv; I stage them one after another when you hear Indian classical music with the rich, melodic, strong emotional pool, and then the rhythmic patterns and melodic movements keep intuitive interactions, that is the pure Indian temple music called, Dhrupad, from where the next development of vocal and instrumental style developed further, which I adapted and incorporated into my slide guitar repertoire.
Rick: Okay. Thank you.
Debashish Bhattacharya: To understand where this music came to me, I have learned this pure music from my childhood, from my ancestors, from my parents . It’s a lineage of seven, eight generations who have performed for God and Goddesses in temple. Didn’t do any day work really, ever really, our family never did any day work ’til my generation, nobody.
But then when I started playing guitar and I started traveling and I started hearing the different cultural voices, different cultural connotations, different cultural accents, I started making my own compositions based on this raags on this music, but globally accepted and easy for the others to collaborate. They can find a borderless music. Yeah. They can find a no man’s land, a transit where they can easily stay without a musical passport.
So that, I have done over the last 40 years. But, this album [The Sounds of Soul] is definitely the strong traditional Indian classical music.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Of course, because improvisation within the rhythm, and if you say Eastern part, it is Indian, classical and the Western part is jazz.
Rick: Yeah.
Debashish Bhattacharya: There are other improvisations also in other genres, but they’re not that much present as much you can find in jazz. It is much easier to collaborate as Indian musicians with jazz music. But in Indian music, as you can to tell, that is probably 30% to 40% composed, and 60%, 70% is improvised.
Rick: Ah, okay.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Right. And that improvisation comes from a maturity, you know, the maturities, like you start learning music in India, you learn techniques, you learn melodies, you learn rhythm, you learn all the attributes of the performance, mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. But, yet you are still very much like a learner or a senior learner called a scholar. Right. But the performer, an artist. When you bring all those things that you have learned in your own dialogue, you can create your own stories and express your emotion, then you become an artist.
So, when you bring those dialogues through your own conversation or own attitude, own feature, own personality, then that music is being accepted by people from all over the world without any border.
Rick: But, what I found really different structurally, is in Western music, we tend to be almost coerced to have a four minute and thirty seconds song for the radio, for commercialization, where you’ve got four compositions on your album, which stretch well beyond the four, and a half minutes format. It sounds to me like Indian music in general, and your album specifically, don’t attach to the four and a half minute structure.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I have done those three minutes, four minutes songs a lot, mm-hmm. <Affirmative> in the beginning of my career. If you remember my first worldwide recognized album was, Calcutta Chronicles, which owns a Grammy nomination, had lot of bullet songs. And I will do it again in some other albums.
But in this album, I didn’t look at the commercial aspect, because for five years I didn’t do any recording, I didn’t release any recording, really. I wanted to give the best of my soil of my country to the West. The beauty of the past century and its rich cultural heritage must be presented time to time. The way we have recorded this album is absolutely like a live concert.
So, when in a live concert we play, each raaga needs like a 45 minutes to one and a half an hour stretch.
But, I have shortened them into 39 minutes, eight minutes, seven, six minutes, seven and a half minutes kind of, so that I can show the tradition of the growth from one note into the full spectrum in this recording, The Sound of the Soul.
Rick: So, that’s a good way to attract people to a whole genre of music that they’ve never heard before.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah. Many, many people listen to my album and they say, “Didn’t realize that the song was for 30 minutes. I thought it was like two minutes. Like a trip, I was lost. ” It’s a train.
Rick: Yeah. But there are people here, who have heard George Harrison, you know, with a sitar I don’t know if you know the other people, of course you know, Ravi.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, I know all of them, yes.
Rick: Know Shawn Phillips?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yes, of course.
Debashish with Pushpa Veena
Rick: Okay, and Donovan Leitch. And so there is some infiltration, but you don’t hear sitar here anymore, and you don’t hear those elements of your culture’s music in our music. And I think that trying to blend that even in jazz, is not all that commercial. And so, you don’t really hear that meld between pop music and Indian music, or even American folk music, you would think they’d pull in some elements of the tabla to give it a chance.
Debashish Bhattacharya: So, yeah. Basically in Western music, the music started from theater, from operas, from choir singing together, singing where everybody’s together, sitting or standing and playing in a church. Playing for a theater, what is called opera. But, the Indian classical music is like a self-experiencing inner self, through self-practicing the music as an art of living.
Rick: So it’s…
Debashish Bhattacharya: Like yoga.
Rick: Ah, yeah.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I mean, people can do yoga, exercise on a field with 50,000 people, that’s quite a good event to watch. But usually yoga is to go inside yourself and receive the blessings and to be pleased of the act, as a person.
Rick: So, do you see that like a self-actualization type of thing? But it’s not just focused on yourself. Right? Like Zen, you’re focused on everything being one. Yes?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yes, in one. But from there, when the society has grown and world countries came together, people came, cultures came together, then the togetherness has been a huge success. And bands of Indian classical music, like Shakti is a big band from that perspective, remember Shakti of John McLaughlin?
Rick: Yes.
Debashish Bhattacharya: So, that has come later. But if you look at those individual artists, they have their own small little space where they practice for their inner self and mastered the art as an individual, like Ustad Zakir Hussain or Mandolin U Srinivas and became cultural ambassadors.
They play for themselves. And then that aura, the result of that culminates when four or five musicians make a band and play for the world.
Rick: They’re phenomenal.
Debashish Bhattacharya: That is what I have figured out much later, because I had no idea what the strength of a slide guitar can produce in the world when I played Indian classical music.
Thirty years ago I figured it out. I felt that consciousness, that this is a golden opportunity for me to be in the service of the Indian tradition. Yes. To spread to the world, because I play guitar. I don’t play sarod, I don’t play flute, I don’t play tabla. I play guitar.
And when I take guitar to a Western audience, I played in places where nobody has heard anything about Indian music Or Indian food, and never seen an Indian guy before. So, those are the hardest times I had to please the people who really think I am presenting something totally foreign to them.
Rick: But, you are breaking barriers at the same time.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I mean, that is what I had to do. Because, if I have not yet done that, then the way of my grand guru, [Ustad Ali Akbar] Khan, and then Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Alla Rakha or the veteran great legendary dancer [Pandit Birju] Maharaj who went to Europe and America the first time and broke the barrier. Right. That continues, that is not yet done. Because what happens after a couple of decades, those deeds, that wonderful work gets lost, it gets forgotten.
So, to the next generation, to the next generation, to the next generation, it should keep continuing. And that is why my effort is always to make one collaborative album, then make another traditional album, by rotation.
One is to bring India to the West, and one is bring the West to India.
Rick: Ah, yeah. It’s very thoughtful of you to come up with that approach.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah. It is. Absolutely. And so far, you guys can tell how much I have been successful. But, I definitely think there’s a lot more work I need to do.
Rick: Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>,
Debashish Bhattacharya: The same work is much bigger for our generation, to keep the survival of the tradition and teach people around the world about the survival of our tradition. It is a much more, bigger job, than in the past today, because people are watching everything, everything from how to cook spaghetti to how to clean your toilet in one device.
Rick: Yes. True.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Where to find Indian classical music is hard, because there are so many things people watch or rather scroll in every few seconds. And also because of the mindset and ability of memory, memory spans are so small now, it is hard for people to focus or concentrate like in the past. It is almost not possible anymore for the younger generation.
So, the job is, as a performing artist and recording artist, like me, musicians, our job is much more difficult to sustain our art…our music. There are people like you who could take this story to the people!
Rick: Yes.
Debashish Bhattacharya: And make our work a little easier.
Rick: I’ll try. [Laughs]. The attention span is so short. Just yesterday I was telling some people that based on looking at your history and maybe you’ve heard this before, that you seem to be like the Les Paul of India. I mean, conceptually at least he designed the electric guitar. But you’ve got four guitars that I’ll say, you invented or designed. So let’s talk about those four.
When you began it was 1978, with the first one, right? When you did that, were you thinking, “I would like to hear a certain sound and I can’t get that.” And then you found an instrument and then you redesigned that instrument? Or did you have an instrument and you said, “I wanna get a different sound out of this instrument?” It’s a different approach. It’s either you’re looking for a sound, or you have an instrument that you find is limited and you expanded the reach of that instrument.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Okay. that’s a very, very big question to answer [Both Laugh]. But I will try! My parents are all Indian classical singers, and nobody played any Western or foreign instrument before. So as a child in my mother’s womb, perhaps I have heard all her singing. And when I was born, I have heard her singing and my father’s singing, my father’s accompanying tabla with my mom.
And then during that time, there was nothing extraordinary than having a small little box called a radio. So all the entertainment, whatever is possible was radio, right? Or a live event, live theater or live music. Sure. But, they were not much happening during the early Sixties in India. So, I was studying Indian classical music from my mom, and I was naturally trying to transcribe all those things on slide guitar.
Then, when I heard the music of a great legend in India, Surbahar is the instrument, which is in between a Sitar and Rudra Veena, which has a big, huge sound, a lot of sustenance; fat tone, mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and a charming effect of resonating sound that made me totally vulnerable. And I was getting that sound in my head all the time. Okay? And my tiny little Hawaiian guitar could not produce that sound.
So, that was in 1966, ’67, I’m talking about,
Rick: Earlier than I thought. Okay.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I’m now 60.
Yesterday, I have found another way to enhance my sound. So, I have not stopped yet. And that is no ultimate yet in my life. You can see many things are already in the limelight, and they are already like ultimate, there is nothing more people can or want to think or want to develop. Already everything is right. This package, these gadgets, this sound, this microphone, this setup, this address, this light, yes. Everything is ultimate.
But for me, I’m still searching to develop today what is the best way to find a better sound to match Indian soul, because those are the sounds which are basically the sound of Indian culture. And I wanted to give the slide guitar, an Indian voice.
Rick: Ah-Huh. <affirmative>.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I was a student, I was an academic student, I was a student of music, I was a child performer, I was a recording artist. I was a teacher teaching for little bit money for my pocket expenses in the Seventies. And I was also a researcher and trying to develop in my own way, the instrument sound. So, the first guitar was built in 1978. I still have that instrument. I’ll send you photos.
Rick: Oh, great. Great. Thank you.
Rick: Okay. Great.
Debashish Bhattacharya: And then after that I also created the first ever slide guitar with 12-strings.
Rick: With 12 strings.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Strings. Like you glide on, you play with one finger, together, two strings you pluck together. And glide on those two strings together. But the problem is if there is a one frequency difference between the unison strings, then the sound is pathetic and very scratchy and not at all soothing to hear. Okay? So it’s very hard to play that instrument to keep every double string in tune all the time.
That is the second instrument. Then third instrument I made, the Anandi. Okay. The four-string slide ukulele . Then the latest one is Pushpa [Pushpa Veena], which is a slide instrument with a wooden body and a hide on top of the guard.
Rick: So, what made you think of putting a hide on, is that on the front board or on the top of the instrument?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Top of the sound board.
Rick: So, would that muffle it or what? What were you looking for when you did that?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Natural resonance. It’s a natural resonance of all the hide instruments from different cultures, African and American banjo. Then Rabab of Afghanistan. Then it also has a wooden effect of Oud of Middle East, sound scape of Shamisen of Japan. It has the effect of Indian instrument Sarod . And it has the breed of all the hide instruments of the world.
Rick: So is it like a banjo, so it’s got a hide top? Or is it layered wood with, with hide on top of that?
Debashish Bhattacharya: No, it’s hide on the small sound chamber with a depth like a sitar .
Rick: It’s like a banjo then. Okay. Yeah, that’s pretty interesting. In my band, we’ve got a Dobro player [Jim Nagle] and he actually knows Jerry Douglas. What was it like working with, with Jerry?
Debashish Bhattacharya: I love this man and his music. I think he’s one of the sweetest musicians on the planet, And his music is so soulful. It affects my mind, it’s with full of joy whenever I think of his music or hear his music or talk to him or meet him. We played together a few times.
He recorded on my album. Ah, if you remember in 2013, there was an album where Jerry and John McLaughlin recorded on my album? I think words fell short to describe my feeling towards the Maestro Bluegrass and Maestro Jazz, Jerry and John.
Rick: That’s beautiful, so I’m sure my dobro bandmate and others will want me to ask you, about the slide you use. Is your slide that you use for your instruments, and maybe it’s different for each one, is it the same as someone with a dobro or a steel would use?
Debashish Bhattacharya: No, my slide is different. I’ll show you the slide. My slide is this small bullet bar. Made by John Pearce.
Rick: Ah, good strings too. [Laughs] Pearce makes good strings.
Debashish Bhattacharya: They make my strings too. So, I hold the bar like this.
Rick: Okay, like…[Rick motions with his hand]
Debashish Bhattacharya: Like a pen and applied on the strings.
Rick: Okay. That’s interesting. Let me show you something real quick. So, I don’t forget, are you familiar with the the Gibson J-45 ? [Rick shows Debashish a 1946 Gibson J-45]
Debashish Bhattacharya: Ooh, that’s an antique instrument. I have a Gibson too. Which was given to me by my guru, a pioneer of Indian classical guitar, the late Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra. The guitar was made in 1946, a Gibson Super 400.
Rick: Nice! That’s a great instrument. The 400. Wow. So do you play that often?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Sometimes, sometimes, yeah.
Rick: So, some stay on the wall, hung on the walls, you know, and others.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I don’t have the have luxury of hanging my instruments on walls.
Rick: I’ve got a 1931 Gibson, L-00, do you wanna see it? It’s right here.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yes, please.
Rick: Okay, so this is from 1931. It’s 12 frets to the body. And so here’s the old Gibson script logo. That’s probably backwards for you. I’m not sure.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I saw that Gibson [logo] correct.
Rick: You worked on the project, the album with John McLaughlin and Jerry [Douglas]. What was it like working with John McLaughlin? He’s just phenomenal. And he was young in videos I’ve watched, in the Sixties.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Now he’s 80.
And he’s touring with, remember Shakti? Shakti’s 50 Year Tour with Vikku [Ghatam player T.H.Vinayakram], Ustad Zakir Hussain and other master musicians, and he’s still phenomenal. He’s still traveling and doing amazing things.
For me, playing with the John was an eye-opening experience and a lot of things to learn, lot of things to imbibe and appreciate and a lot of things to learn when you play in a band; how to show kindness and love to each other on stage and offstage, a humbling beautiful experience.
Rick: So when you’re playing with somebody like a John McLaughlin, aren’t you working with different modes, musical scales, and how do you…
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah, yeah. We work together.We agree on different songs, and then we learn each other’s songs, and then we play together and improvise differently.
Rick: You’re also a teacher. So you’ve got a school right, where you live?
Debashish Bhattacharya: . The students generally who really want to study and who really want to see the music as the prime focus of their life, they come to stay with me for a couple of months each year, or sometimes three months each year. Sometimes one and a half a months each year. But, they also continue with their Zoom lessons the rest of the year.
Rick: So they’re augmented by the Zooms, as well.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yes.
Rick: How many students do you normally have?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Right now, not much. I teach probably 30 students now.
But before it was more like 300 students or 3,000 students. I have never counted. [Laughs]
Rick: So, when you are in this, I’ll say the total immersion process, besides teaching the technical aspects of the instruments, I would assume there’s some type of spiritual thing going on, as well, or some cultural philosophical stuff underlying all that? So, they don’t just learn the techniques.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah. To tell you the truth. Music can be taught as composition or scale or technique. But artists can’t be made. Some people who are born with music, they feel the connection, then they become artists And that is very rare.
So industrially, there are opportunities everywhere to become a musician, make it a profession, earn money, earn fame, but to become an artist is absolutely to the student’s credit or talent and inborn gift. Yes, a hidden gift. He has brought by birth from other generation or from genetic qualifications. So, technique can be taught, but when he’s a disciple, you can sing with, you can play with, you can have the feeling, emotive feeling can understand from the heart. Yes. Then he is ready to go, holding hands of Gurus and go to the spiritual path. That is very rare.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I hear more and I collect DNA of the sound .
Rick: And try to emulate that with your instrument somehow, and try to fit that into your the music, I mean, are you hyper-sensitive to things?
Debashish Bhattacharya: If I feel that is quite important and make my musical sound richer, I definitely do that. But, I can tell you a story.
I used to travel in my childhood with the local trains. And local trains, when they have two engines, one on the second, end coach, like there were eight coaches, where the machine was built into the coach where people are sitting with the machine. So, if I have traveled with that machine, there were two sounds. One was the clacking sound of the wheels on the track on the rail, a continuous rhythm.
Rick: Mm-Hmm.
Debashish Bhattacharya: As the train takes speed there was a frequency that was going higher, so I used to take those two sounds. One was rhythm and one was the frequency. Yeah. And practice my patterns with those from sitting in the train for hours.
Rick:. It sounds like you’re very curious.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Very, very…
Rick: A continuous rhythm. Curious. And in your curiosity, you pull the world into your mind, and then you try to reflect that somehow in your music. Is that kind of what you think you do normally? Or?
Debashish Bhattacharya: I am, I am very, very curious personally.
Rick: So, are you big reader?
Debashish Bhattacharya: My ears are always bigger than it’s looks like…I used to read a lot before, but nowadays I write a lot and listen to pure music, soul stirring music.
I have finished my autobiography. And I’m writing music. My goal is to write my own compositions, like 2000 compositions to publish probably next year. And so I have much less time nowadays to read.
I used to read a lot of poetries, literatures. Kind of serious, my favorites are Shelly, Byron, Keats, and Shakespeare, and Rab [Rabindranath Tagore,] the first Nobel laureate from Bengal. There was time when Rab used to go to London and do his poetry recitation. And at that time, the other famous British poets used to go back home discussing that they are not poets anymore, [Laughs] after hearing him. So, I read them a lot in my early days.
Rick: Interesting. For people who are unfamiliar with your music what album or albums would you say to them, “If you listen to this, you’ll kind of get what I’m doing and it reflects my kind of music, that I think will attract you to more music of India, in general.” Do you have two favorite albums or?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Definitely, one of the favorite albums is Calcutta Chronicles. Which was well received. Then another one was Hawaii to Calcutta in to tribute Tau Moe, the great Hawaiian musician, who came to Calcutta and who introduced Hawaiian music to India. And the third one is, Beyond The Ragasphere, which is a collaboration with lots of star musicians. And, of course, this one, The Sound of the Soul, the last one. [Joy!Guru -2019]
PURCHASE THE MUSIC OF DEBASHISH BHATTACHARYA HERE!
Rick: Of the compositions that you have in your the Sound of The Soul. And I understand John McLaughlin came up with the title, is that right? So, was he part of, did he play on this album?
Debashish Bhattacharya: No.
Rick: So of all those compositions, do you have a favorite to play, that’s more fun to play, even beyond listening?
Debashish Bhattacharya: The one in the slow medium seven beat cycle, which is included on the long song. Okay, “The Lotus”.
Rick: That’s the one I like the most. <Laughs> It resonates, yes, it’s very elegant.
Debashish Bhattacharya
Debashish Bhattacharya: It’s my offering to the Ultimate Power. And I was totally lost in the recording studio. I didn’t know where I’m sitting and what I’m doing. Okay? And I played and I finished. And then I opened my eyes and everybody was cheering in the studio.
I didn’t know what I played later on. And there is no second take. There is no edit. It’s just as it was recorded. The legendary tabla Maestro and respected as my guru legend of tabla Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri accompanied on tabla, and blessed me after that track recorded.
Rick: That reminds me of, you ever read the book, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
Debashish Bhattacharya: No.
Rick: That was a big hit book back in the Seventies. And the author writes about when a mechanic turns a wrench, he gets to a certain really sweet point, it’s like perfection, and you lose a sense of self in that moment. So, you’re gonna be coming to the States and do you know where you’re going to kick off your tour?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Well, this year, in 2023, I have to finish my book. And I’m also composing lots of songs for my future collaborations with high profile musicians. I am also giving a lot of time to my son who has picked up my instruments and is really talented.
Rick: Great.
Debashish Bhattacharya: 2023 is basically for giving time to myself and produce to get ready for 2024. But, I’m still waiting for my booking agent to find some things later of this year. But if it is not at all this year, but 2024 for sure.
Rick: Do you ever use any pedals to get any different sounds, like reverb or anything?
Debashish Bhattacharya No, no.
Rick: So you’re not into maybe having an album with surf music? [Laughs]
Debashish Bhattacharya: Oh, well, if I need to use those, I humbly very gently ask the sound engineer to do this. But, I prefer to play my acoustic instrument acoustically, so that all the effects they want to add on at the side, sure. My favorite reverb is the old…
Rick: Spring. [Spring Reverb]
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yes.
Rick: What I’ve found is producers like to have you play dry and then they’ll add to the production effects. I did find an Indian surf group from the Seventies on YouTube called The Mustangs.
Debashish Bhattacharya: I’ll definitely search for it.
Rick: [Laughs] Have you ever found any young musicians that you’ve taught that have taken your instruments and done something with them, taken them in different directions than you anticipated?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Many, many of them. First one was Bob Brozman. And then there is this student of mine in England called Phillip Henry. And there’s an American student of mine, Billy Cardine. And there is a Japanese guitarist, Soichiro Gott. Many took my instruments, learned from me, and played their own music.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yes, and I also have written 16 chapters, a complete syllabus for playing slide guitar, how to play slide guitar.
Rick: So, how far along are you on your autobiography?
Debashish Bhattacharya: Autobiography is written in my mother tongue. I’m waiting to find somebody to transcribe it in the basic structure of English. And then it’ll be printed at least in eight different languages.
Rick: Oh, terrific.
Debashish Bhattacharya: With that 2000 compositions, that is a combo.
Rick: Oh, really? Wow. So when you’re ready to put that out, please send it to me.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Absolutely.
Rick: Have you found in India that there is a culture of celebrity, where you’re recognized on the street a lot. And so is your privacy ever an issue or do you enjoy that or does that happen to you?
Debashish Bhattacharya: I enjoy being on the street and being with the people and eat street food, anywhere in India. [Laughs] Sometimes I get recognized. Yeah. Sometimes people don’t know who I am. Okay? I like this, this lifestyle because this is more organic.
Rick: Organic.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Yeah. This is more organic than having six big guys in the front, four big guys in the back, and living in the black windows, always inside the black windows. Yeah. That I don’t like. I always love to see the crowd
Rick: Ah, we’ve covered a lot of ground. I think.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Well, you know, just, this past year in 2022 World Music Central has put my name in the Hall of Fame of World music and apart from that, I have created four different traditional Indian instruments: Chaturangui, Ghandharvi, Anandi, and Pushpa Veena.
I have created. four raags. I have to include the compositions of the new raags also. So, I have to do a lot of sitting, practicing, and writing. That’s hard. A lot of work here. 2023 and months are gone! So basically, I have really, really little time for myself.
And to add something to it, since I have been given this beautiful very organic title of Hall of Fame, I think I have to have more authentic collaborations with some other cultural ambassadors.
I’m looking forward for some sponsors, some additional connections, communications to find some really great phenomenal artists to collaborate, compose, practice together, record, and travel. So, that’s my basic idea for another two, three years span.
Rick: Oh, you’re a busy man.! [Laughs]
Debashish Bhattacharya: I wanted to always be! [Laughs]
Rick: This has been wonderful and it’s great meeting you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Debashish Bhattacharya: Thank you, Rick.
BONUS VIDEO
