Tango In The Rio Night
My life has strung me across lots of different places. I now live in Brazil I moved there about a decade ago with my wife, Julie. Its a wild place...the country captured my imagination because its so alive so full of rhythm. I notice that since I settled there, Ive become much more conscious of rhythm in the music I play and listen to.
I stay in the capital, Rio de Janeiro its a really big city, but most of the people are sweet and friendly. Since I speak Portuguese, I feel quite at home there. My astrological sign is cancer thats the crab, so I naturally have a great love for the sea. I live in a part of Rio called Barra. Thats a newly built area on the more untouched part of the coast; its not like the touristy resorts of Ipanema and Copacabana.
My favourite time to go to the beach is in the evening. I like the calm ocean and the call of the sea-gulls returning home. I specially like the waves in the moonlight. I just like simplicity. Even in music, I like simplicity simple songs and chords, simple vocals and simple lead guitar.
Im actually not a party-nightlife kind of guy I prefer quiet evenings at home with music, art or books, but I like knowing that Rio is full of life till the wee hours.
The night life is everywhere almost every place is open till 3:30 and thats why you never find people at work before 10:30 in the morning! Rios definitely not a place to get things done quickly, but what I like is that people are very accepting of each other. They may be lots of blunders along the way, but at least everyone is free to have his own style of blunders.
Brazilian food is like its atmosphere full of spice. My favourite dish is feijoa a mixture of beans with meat and rice, cooked in a delicious seasoning. It has the most enticing smell, earthy and rich; in fact, Im sure its a dish that many Indians would love.
Brazilian food is definitely a welcome change from the bland English food I grew up with; the thought of going back to live in England is quite scary. Life there became so predictable and boring that I knew I couldnt stick around much longer.
I first discovered Brazil 22 years ago, when I was a member of the Children of God movement trying to revive the meaningfulness of the Bible in peoples lives. A group of us travelled across the country, performing music in cities and towns. We learnt Portuguese so that we could write our songs in the language of the people, and we sang about everyday things, like life and love, rather than complex church music.
We even sang in prisons; at first, the inmates were a little skeptical because they thought wed be moralistic or fanatic, but then they realised that we were just singing about our down-to-earth experiences. It was great to see their enthusiasm. I still really like doing charity shows even after the Children of God disbanded in 1978, I retained all that the movement had added to my life.
Thats why Ive come to India to do these charity concerts, even though it meant missing the awards ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I asked Mick Fleetwood to accept the award for me in New York on the 12th of January, since the whole band (Fleetwood Mac) has received this honour.
Although I would have liked to receive my award personally, I felt that my commitment here was more important. Playing live for a good cause is something I like to do. I also like the response of the Indian people because I like their depth and the way they look beyond the surface of things.
Though Ive never studied traditional Indian music, I have the impression that it appeals to the inside of the listener to the soul. A lot of western music doesnt do that instead it just tries to stimulate physical movement. But the style of music that I focus on now the blues is like Indian music, in that it also appeals to the soul.
Im glad that Ive had the chance to discover more about India now. My first exposure to Indians was in Birmingham, where I lived for some time as a child. But at that time, I viewed Indians from a distance, as most English people view immigrants. Although the English like to pride themselves on being very tolerant, I think the reality is quite different.
Here, Ive had the chance to actually stay amongst Indians we are staying in a friends flat, not a hotel so I have an insight into what everyday life is like.
Its quite different from my days on tour with Fleetwood Mac. Then, we were on the road about nine months of the year, moving from hotel to hotel I didnt get to see much of the places we were travelling through.
Our tours were mostly through Europe and the US, because Asia and Latin America were not big markets for western music back then. Its funny, but I havent really visited those parts of the US where the blues really originated the deep south like Mississippi and so on.
My most recent connection with the American South is quite a strange one a blues lover in Tennessee sent me a brand new Paul Reed Smith guitar (a custom built one, worth a whopping $3,000) in exchange for my 26-year-old Gibson guitar. He has an Old Rock and Blues Museum in Memphis, so he wanted my instrument as one of the exhibits.
And funnily enough, we worked out this deal through a Brazilian tour guide, to whom I had taught a few slide guitar techniques many years ago. The Brazilian was in Memphis, conducting a tour of the historical blues site, and this Memphis man asked if he could trace me in Rio... thats how I now have a lovely blues guitar to play the blues on.
I really discovered blues when I was a 16-year-old in art college in England. I heard a recording of Elmore James, a 50s electric slide guitarist blues player; I knew then that James was the person I wanted to play and sing like.
A year later, I broke my leg when an iron gate fell on it. It proved a blessing in disguise because I used the six weeks that I was laid up in plaster, to listen to James album and teach myself the technique of slide guitaring. Perhaps one would call that a lucky break!
A few months later, I met some musicians in Birmingham who wanted to form a blues band, and that was the beginning of Fleetwood Mac with
Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. What a journey its been...
As told to Seema Nazareth