If Seth Panduranga Blumberg, drops his last name he could easily sound like a sweet shop owner in South India and not like a grammy award winner who has moved to Goa with his equally well known folk musician friend, Anusheh Anadil from Dhaka.
Seth Panduranga Blumberg has made a bit of music in life. Such as collaborating with Ike Turner (Tina Turner’s husband) during his last 10 years, sharing the stage with a certain BB King and a certain Buddy Guy, and winning a Grammy for the Best Traditional Blues record in 2007.
Anusheh Anadil is a cult singer from Bangladesh influenced
greatly by the music of Bauls and Fakirs of Bengal and a
member of arguably Bangalesh’s most iconic band “Bangla”.
If Goa needed any inspiration for the revival of its live music,
it should have been satiated with the arrival of “Pandu”
Blumberg and Anusheh. Last heard they were looking for a
home and making Goa their base, the latest in a long line of
superbly acclaimed writers, poets, economists and now singers
who have moved here.
On International Blues day, they performed along with a
motley group of musicians you would pay and travel a long
way to watch, in a little restaurant tucked away in the Verna
woods Soul Souffle. And as always, the torch bearers of Goa’s
successful revival of Live Music Daryll and Vinesh of Art
Escape were at hand to pull this off.
But beyond the sheer pleasure of listening to Pandu and others
is something else which sounds far sweeter. The fact that
Goa has some of the best blues musicians in the country and
can rate among the top three places in India for Blues, the
other two being Calcutta and Bangalore.
Herman Abreo (Vox, Guitar,Harp), Shayne Ballantyne (Guitar)
and Joe Ferrao (Bass), along with drummer Vivek Philip
from Bombay re-established Goa’s credentials as a serious
world music destination. This is a movement of musicians,
and has a life of its own. And it breathes due to the life that
blues and other music lovers inject when they come for performances
like these.
Daryll and Vinesh, of course, our barefoot sadhus of music
have kept vigil over this fort, protecting, promoting, propagating
live music like proud and also worried parents. It is
because of them that live music across genres like Jazz and
Blues, is heard in Goa. They are the ones who have given
singers and song creators a platform and the people a place.
As they move out of their home of a couple of years “Baywatch”
in Sernabatim where they staged all performances, to
other spots, Goa owes it to them to help them find a permanent
place where music can be heard, promoted and musicians
can be housed. A place where workshops, training and
practice can happen by day and music happen by night. For
live music to live and for musicians to find home, a permanent
facility for Blues Jazz , Folk and actually any kind of
universal music is needed.
At the same time, a facility of this nature will encourage
young talent in the towns and villages of Goa, to come, learn
and train, under the watchful care of veteran musicians
who may yet get a Grammy home. But that can never be the
aim, which will always be to touch feel and imbibe music on
which boys and girls have become men and women and more
elevated human beings.
As for Pandu and Anusheh, welcome to Goa, we would love it
if you make this land of yours your home and regale us with
your songs and stories of your life with the greats. And sing
those songs and play the harp, the flute or the dotara. Stay
here. Make the sound of the waves, the sifting of the sands,
the clap of thunder, the chirping of the birds in the skies of
Goa, the inspiration for your music. Come home.
