This Jazz maestro who redefined the electric guitar in the 70s has a long-standing affair with India. So John McLaughlin was thrilled to be invited to receive the Hafiz Ali Khan Award. “It is humbling to be put in the illustustrious line-up of people who have received this award,” says Mc Laughlin.
At 67, Mc Laughlin is charged up to do more after the award. “I have not run out of gas yet. I don’t plan my records, they just come to me. As long as I am healthy and strong, I will continue to work. My last record came to me when I was on a vacation with my wife in Spain. She told me I’d got to record,” says McLaughlin, adding, “I don’t write music, the music writes me.”
The musician has a special relationship with India. In fact, he had recorded his last album in India with Indian artists and it got a Grammy nomination.
McLaughlin recollects his India connect. “It all began when George Harrison began learning the sitar from Pandit Ravi Shankar. It was a time when we were all looking for a path to spiritual realisation. We were looking at India for enlightenment. Indian music embraces and integrates those spiritual sentiments, unlike Western music,” says McLaughlin. He introduced many Indian elements in his 70s band, The Mahavishnu Orchestra.
McLaughlin’s next record To The One will also have a spiritual dimension. “I am working a lot with the guitar and synthesiser. It will be like a painting. It’s not a series of unlinked songs like it usually is. It is an integrated work. Every song is a piece of the whole.”
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