Born in Munbai, India, singer and harmonica player Aki Kumar left home to travel to USA with the intention to work as a software engineer. But he discovered blues and that music changed his life. At first, he devoted himself to playing classic blues inspired by the great Chicago masters, because he wanted to prove that, although he came from a so far country as India, he could play blues with the same feeling as African American people and recorded his first albums too. Little by little his style evolved, incorporating some sounds coming from his country traditional music and currently he has developed his own style that cleverly mixes both musical genres. It was from the release of the album “Aki Goes to Bollywood” for Little Village Foundation in 2016 that Aki decided to investigate the possibilities of this combination. Their songs are classic traditional blues, but some of them are seasoned with instruments and sounds that come from his country, which gives them a different and original display.

The eternal discussion of if a song is blues or not, if to play blues is to do the same thing over and over again or if a song moves away from blues and becomes something else, makes no sense when you listen to Aki Kumar, because he has managed to preserve the more traditional blues giving a new dimension to it.

This album really proves that. Produced, recorded and mixed by Aki Kumar himself, it gathers thirteen very well-developed songs I can say will be interesting to most blues and harmonica lovers, as well as to anyone who wants to discover well-done, different and original music.

Aki Kumar is on vocals and harmonica, showing a good performance technique backed by a wide bunch of musicians like, among others, Bob Welsh on guitar, Randy Bermudes on bass, June Core on drums, Jim Santi Owen on tabla and khanjira, Will Marsh on sitar or Jack Sanford on sax.