There aren’t many musicians who can make a twenty-string Indian instrument sound like it grew up on the banks of the Mississippi, but Harry Manx has spent more than three decades doing exactly that.
Dubbed an “essential link” between the music of East and West, the Isle of Man-born, Canadian-raised singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist has built an entire career on a sound nobody else owns: a hypnotic, slide-guitar-driven hybrid of Delta blues and Hindustani classical raga that fans and critics alike have nicknamed “Mysticssippi.”
With his twenty-second studio album, Falling Upwards having arrived on August 28, 2026, and a fresh run of Canadian tour dates already selling out rooms from British Columbia to Quebec, this is a fitting moment to look back at how a roadie from Sutton, Ontario, became one of the most quietly influential roots musicians of his generation.
From Isle of Man Roadie to Saltspring Island Sage
Harry Manx was born in Douglas, on the Isle of Man, in 1955, the son of a Scottish merchant-marine father and a Manx mother.
His family emigrated to Sutton, Ontario, when he was a young child, and by fifteen he was already working as a roadie, hauling gear for touring bands. That apprenticeship led to a job as the house sound engineer at Toronto’s legendary El Mocambo club, where a teenage Manx spent his nights standing behind the board for a rotating cast of blues legends.
It was there, he has said, that he absorbed the groove that still anchors everything he plays today, even the material that sounds nothing like a traditional twelve-bar blues.
At twenty, Manx left Toronto to busk his way across Europe, eventually landing in Japan, where he lived and performed for a decade. It was in Japan, in 1990, that he heard a recording by Indian slide guitarist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and immediately knew he had to study with him. He relocated to Rajasthan and spent roughly a dozen years living in India, five of them under Bhatt’s direct tutelage, essentially unlearning everything he knew about slide guitar so he could rebuild his technique around Indian scales and ragas.
Bhatt, a Grammy winner for his work with Ry Cooder on A Meeting by the River, gave Manx one more gift before he left: a custom-built Mohan Veena, the twenty-stringed sitar-guitar hybrid Bhatt had invented himself.
In 2000, Manx moved back to Canada and settled on Saltspring Island, British Columbia, where he still lives and where he recorded his 2001 debut, Dog My Cat, in a single eleven-hour session.
Twelve Years in India: Building the “Indo-Blues” Sound
What makes Manx’s biography more than a colorful footnote is how directly it explains his music.
The Mohan Veena is played flat on the lap like a steel guitar but strung and tuned like a sitar, complete with sympathetic resonator strings that ring out in long, droning sustain. Manx has described the philosophical split behind his sound in strikingly plain terms: Indian music, he says, pulls a listener inward, toward meditation and stillness, while Western music pushes outward, toward celebration and dance.
His entire catalog exists in the friction between those two pulls, and that friction is precisely what critics keep circling back to. Guitar Player‘s Barry Cleveland called him “an accomplished and adventurous lap-slide guitarist” with “a rich, warm, and soulful voice,” while Downbeat‘s Frank Hadley credited Manx with “creating a rare musical place where blues, country, folk and Indian classical music co-exist as some spirit force.”
Manx is careful to note that this fusion wasn’t a marketing gimmick invented after the fact; it grew out of literal jam sessions in Bhatt’s home in Rajasthan, where he would occasionally slip a blues lick into a raga just to see what happened.
“I thought if I can get Indian people to enjoy Western music like that,” he has recalled, “then maybe I could get Westerners to enjoy Indian music, too.” That instinct became the throughline of every record that followed.
The Catalog of Harry Manx is One Built on Restless Curiosity
Since Dog My Cat in 2001, Manx has released material at a genuinely prolific clip, putting out roughly twenty albums in twenty-five years on his own independent label, Dog My Cat Records.
Early standouts like Wise and Otherwise (2002) and West Eats Meet (2004) established the template of slide guitar, mohan veena, banjo, harmonica, and tamboura woven around original songs and reimagined blues standards, while Mantras for Madmen (2005) earned a spot on the Chicago Sun-Times‘ list of the year’s top ten blues records.
His long-running creative partnership with Toronto guitarist Kevin Breit — beginning with Jubilee in 2003 and continuing through In Good We Trust (2007) and Strictly Whatever (2011) — produced some of his most celebrated collaborative work, including a hushed, haunting cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” that reportedly drew a personal compliment from the Boss himself after Manx performed it at New York’s International Guitar Festival.
Later records kept pushing the East-West concept in new directions: Bread and Buddha (2009) earned a Juno nomination for Blues Album of the Year, Faith Lift (2017) reimagined his back catalog with a string quartet drawn from the Sydney Opera House Strings, and Way Out East (2022) returned explicitly to the raga-soaked territory that first defined him.
Along the way, Manx has also lent his mohan veena and slide work to tribute albums honoring Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot, and to sessions with artists ranging from Australian didgeridoo player Xavier Rudd to folk legend Richie Havens.
Harry Manx Has Not Gone Without Awards, Acclaim, and Famous Admirers
The industry recognition has followed the music rather than the other way around.
Manx has won seven Maple Blues Awards, received six Juno Award nominations, took home the Canadian Folk Music Award for Best Solo Artist in 2005, and was handed CBC Radio’s Great Canadian Blues Award in 2007.
Billboard has called him “Canada’s most expressive Blues player,” while Downbeat has praised his ability to make disparate genres feel like a single, unified spirit.
What’s notable is how consistently the reviews single out the same thing: not novelty, but authenticity. As one reviewer for Blogcritics put it after Bread and Buddha, Manx’s fusion never comes across as forced, because he spent the better part of a decade actually living inside the tradition he borrows from rather than sampling it from a distance.
Falling Upwards: A New Chapter, Twenty-Five Years On
Falling Upwards, out August 28, 2026, arrives almost exactly a quarter-century after Dog My Cat first introduced the world to Manx’s sound, and the timing clearly wasn’t lost on him.
The ten-track record opens with a stormy reworking of the traditional “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” featuring Kevin Breit on guitar and Portugal-based mantra vocalist Omkara, before Manx takes on Bob Dylan’s “Gonna Have to Serve Somebody” alongside Indian surbahar player Gopal G.
The album’s guest list reads like a map of his musical life: Steve Marriner of MonkeyJunk on the instrumental “Pork Pie Turban,” Joey Landreth of The Bros. Landreth on slide guitar for “This Joy,” Australian Hammond organist Clayton Doley on “Steel Rose,” and Calgary accordionist Michael Dangelmaier on a tender rendition of the Scottish folk standard “The Water Is Wide.”
Reflecting on the record in his own words, Manx put it simply: “My new recording Falling Upwards is another collection of strange and wonderful styles. I’m playing some of the songs in my live shows and they are working well. I think I might have grown a bit since my first release in 2001. I know that it feels easier to play now than it ever has. I experiment with different songs but the main theme is always East meets West. I’ve found that my music speaks to the heart of the listener. I’m not so interested to impress them, more interested to inspire the listener. That’s the goal, that’s the work.”
It’s a quietly candid statement from a musician seventy-one years into life and twenty-five years into a recording career, and it captures something true about his whole catalog: the songs have never been built to show off technique for its own sake, even though the technique is considerable.
Here Is Our Interview with Harry Manx
This past August, Ticketscene had the pleasure of sitting down with Harry Manx for a quick interview discussing his career and what’s to come.
Q: You left Canada as a teenager to busk around Europe — what made you want to leave home, and what did those early street-corner years teach you?
HARRY: I left Canada when I had had enough of being a roadie for rock bands. I was still a teenager when I left for Europe to become a busker. It was the only way I could finance my travels. It was often a hard life, but I took the good and bad knowing that’s the price of finding your own way.
Q: You spent a decade living in Japan before you ever set foot in India. What kept you there so long, and how did that experience shape you musically before the raga influence even entered the picture?
HARRY: I lived in Japan for almost 10 years. I was playing on the street in Tokyo and doing gigs around the country for agencies. It was there that I began to play lap-slide guitar. I had a lot of free time, and so I decided to spend it learning how to play better. Up until then, I only played songs that were popular on the street. I loved Japan and found relative success as a street musician.
Q: You’ve said hearing a recording of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt in Japan changed the course of your life. What was it about that specific recording that hit you so hard?
HARRY: I heard VM Bhatt playing the Mohan veena on a recording. It blew my mind because I was a fan of Indian music and slide guitar. The Mohan veena is played like a slide guitar but sounds like a sitar.
Q: Walk me through the decision to actually go find Bhatt and ask to study with him. Did you have any idea what you were signing up for?
HARRY: As soon as I heard VM Bhatt playing, I knew I would track him down and become his student. Nothing seemed more likely to me than that. I met him in Rajasthan and I remained with him for many years.
Q: You’d already been playing slide guitar for years, yet Bhatt reportedly had you start over from the beginning. What was it like to be a “beginner” again at that stage of your life?
HARRY: VM Bhatt took me back to the beginning of playing lap-slide guitar. I had to unlearn whatever I had previously known about slide guitar. And I did it willingly. I knew I was in the presence of greatness.
Q: What was a typical day of study with Bhatt actually like — was it formal instruction, or more absorption through proximity?
HARRY: I would arrive at his house every morning at 8 a.m. I’d stay to practice until noon. Then I went to my own apartment nearby to continue practice, and finally I would return to VM’s house in the evening to hang out and play a little.
Q: The Mohan veena is Bhatt’s own invention. What does it feel like, physically and musically, to play an instrument that isn’t quite a guitar and isn’t quite a sitar?
HARRY: The Mohan veena is an original creation of VM Bhatt. I feel honoured to be one of the few westerners who knows the instrument. It’s a gift from the Divine for me.
Q: Is there a moment from those five years in India — on stage with Bhatt or off — that you still think about regularly?
HARRY: I toured with VM Bhatt for years. I played an accompanying instrument. We played in front of huge crowds. The shows often happened in the middle of the night and would last for hours.
Q: How did it feel the first time you brought the Mohan veena back into a blues context, away from Bhatt and away from India?
HARRY: I started to mix blues with ragas as soon as I could find my way around a raga. It was a natural fit for me because I loved both genres of music. It was bound to happen to me sooner or later that I would mix the two styles.
Q: You’ve coined the term “Mysticssippi” for your sound. When did that word occur to you, and what does it capture that “blues-raga fusion” doesn’t?
HARRY: The term Mysticssippi was coined by a journalist on Vancouver Island. It speaks to the two styles of my music, the heavenly eastern sounds and the earthly western groove of the blues.
Q: Delta blues and Hindustani classical music come from very different emotional and spiritual traditions. What do they have in common underneath the surface?
HARRY: Indian music and blues share some common elements. For instance, the notes of some ragas will be the same as some western scales. Knowing that, it’s easy to jump between the two styles. Indian slide uses a very predetermined approach to bending the tones, as does the blues. But in the end, I bend the rules to have my own sound.
Q: Do you approach a raga-based passage and a 12-bar blues passage differently in your head, or does it all come from the same place once you’re playing?
HARRY: I usually start a song with an alap (opening notes of a raga) and then I introduce the rhythm, which is generally bluesy. When I solo in a raga fashion, there will be no chord changes behind me. It’s monotone.
Q: Purists in both traditions could bristle at combining them. How do you think about that tension, if you feel it at all?
HARRY: If you want to live your creativity to the limit, you will have to transcend public opinion. I disturb the purists of both Indian classical and the blues. I couldn’t care less.
Q: Is there a musical idea or combination you’ve wanted to try that still feels unresolved or unfinished to you?
HARRY: I would love to play with the intensity and depth of John McLaughlin’s music, but I don’t desire that enough to want to practice 12 hours a day. I’m more inclined to go deeper and deeper into what I know.
Q: Your catalogue includes a lot of one-man-band recording — guitar, banjo, harmonica, vocals, often live in a single take. What does that setup force out of you that a full band session doesn’t?
HARRY: I’ve been a one-man band for about 40 years. But now I sit and tap triggers instead of carrying a drum on my back. Doing the solo thing is a challenge. I’ve got my hands, feet, and voice all operating at once.
Q: You’ve collaborated with artists like Kevin Breit over the years. What do you look for in a musical partner, and how does a collaboration change the songs you end up writing?
HARRY: I love to collaborate with great players. The ones who don’t have much to say about music, but their music speaks loud and clear. I don’t like to rehearse anyone. If someone can find their way within my sound, then we usually get along great. Musicians like Kevin Breit and Clayton Doley are two of my favourites.
Get Your Tickets to See Harry Manx’s Next Live Show Before They’re Gone
Few artists can claim a biography as unusual as Harry Manx’s, and fewer still have turned that unusual path into a musical language as coherent and instantly recognizable as his Mohan Veena-driven Indo-blues.
Twenty-five years and roughly twenty albums after Dog My Cat first put his one-man-band sound on record, Falling Upwards finds him leaning on a deep bench of collaborators while still chasing the same idea that sent him to Rajasthan in the first place: that the blues and the raga were somehow always meant to meet.
Whether you discover him through this new record, through one of his sold-out tour dates, or through a two-decade-old cut of “Coat of Mail,” the throughline is the same — Harry Manx isn’t trying to impress you. He’s trying to take you somewhere quieter, and then bring you back out.
Get your tickets here to see Harry Manx live on September 18th in Kingston, Ontario at the Broom Factory.
