Muddy Gurdy Trio (English version)
Muddy Gurdy, Hypnotic Wheel’s second album, released worldwide on February 2, 2018, by VizzTone, won the prestigious Charles Cros Academy Coup de Coeur award in March. The band was also finalist of the Académie du Jazz Blues Prize. The album has been acclaimed by the press, be it in France, in the United States, and elsewhere too.
I discovered them at the MNOP Festival this year and was amazed to hear this fantastic combo, the hurdy gurdy and steel guitar together with Tia’s deep voice are truly creating a powerful blues, close your eyes and you travel over the Atlantic to the hot and misty Mississippi region.
Here is the story of this very original project…
Inspired by an original idea from percussionist Marc Glomeau, French band
Hypnotic Wheels brings together three musicians and instruments which have
never been associated before: a hurdy-gurdy, a calabash drum, and a
guitar.
Hypnotic Wheels creates a singular universe mixing Mississippi blues,
Central France music, pop, trance, and electro, uniting elements from
electronic and folk music. Its obsessive, mystical and enigmatic sound,
like a perpetual trance –hence the name– sets a mesmerizing background for
Tia’s magnetic voice.
The trio along with sound engineer Pierre Bianchi have been acclaimed
at their first major show at the 7 Nights to the Blues festival in
Northern France in 2013 and on all the stages they have performed since.
Their first album, Hypnotic Wheels, was released in the fall of 2014.
They recorded their second album in Mississippi in spring of 2017. Muddy
Gurdy (the name of the album) has been released in February 2018.
Tia Gouttebel (guitar, vocals)
Tia was first noticed in the late 90s by American guitarist Larry Garner
who invited her on several shows between 1999 and 2001. Tia
began to develop her own style as a guitarist and vocalist.
In 2002 she formed her own band, Tia & The Patient Wolves, and
started performing in clubs in France and in Europe, as well as in the
most prestigious festivals: Cognac Blues Passions, Cahors Blues
Festival, and Salaise Blues Festival (France), Kwadendamme Festival (Holland),
Blues in Bloom (Belgium), opening for international artists like Jimmy
Johnson, Louisiana Red, John Mayall…
Tia was awarded the Cognac Blues Passions Grand Prize in 2012 and opened
for Charlie Musselwhite and Ben Harper in front of a crowd of
over 6,000 the following year.
She has traveled extensively in the United States several
times (Memphis, Mississippi, New Orleans, Texas, Los Angeles, Florida).
She has been invited on stage by the greatest musicians:
bassist Leroy Hodges (Al Green), guitarists Kirk Fletcher and Johnny
Moeller (The Fabulous Thunderbirds), drummer James Gadson (Bill Withers),
harmonicist Lynwood Slim. All of them have been “amazed” by the talent and the
authenticity of the French woman.
Gilles Chabenat (hurdy-gurdy)
Gilles Chabenat was born in Central France. That is where he started
playing the hurdy-gurdy at age 13 with Les Thiaulins, an
organization devoted to promote folk arts and traditions. He won several
awards and subsequently decided to work on his region’s rich traditional
repertoire with already a desire to branch out into other musical styles.
In the wake of Valentin Clastrier, he felt the need to reinvent the
instrument and the playing techniques associated with it. Around that time and
after several years of research, luthier Denis Siorat developed a
contemporary-style electro-acoustic instrument which facilitated the
integration of the hurdy-gurdy into the modern musical experience.
In 1992, Gilles Chabenat began a 12-year partnership with famous Corsican
band I Muvrini. He later met and worked with Sting, Véronique Sanson,
Florent Pagny, Stephan Eicher, Jean-Jacques Goldman, and collaborated with jazz
musicians Vincent Mascart, Jacques Mahieux, Alain Bruel, Alain Gibert, and
Jean-Marc Padovani in a number of creative works, including a theatrical
reading of Enzo Corman. His hurdy-gurdy can also be heard in a movie, Pierre
Jolivet’s Le Frère du Guerrier. (Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPckuCh_cAw)
Gilles Chabenat’s approach shows the multiple aspects of an instrument
which has been evolving for over 1,000 years. Just like he does today
with Hypnotic Wheels.
Marc Glomeau (percussion,
vocals)
Percussionnist, writer, and producer Marc Glomeau founded Black
Chantilly, which became one of the leading French Afro-Cuban jazz bands. He toured
for over 10 years with the band.
Marc Glomeau then worked with numerous artists from the jazz scene, as well
as in French and American world music: Bruno Angelini, Thierry Peala, Rosy
Bazile, Cheb Bilal, Arthur H.
His meeting with drummer and writer Marlon Simon (nominated for a
Grammy Award with his In Case You Missed It album) changed the course
of his career. In 2008 the “Black Chantilly invites Marlon Simon” project
wins the prestigious French American Jazz Exchange Prize, awarded by
Culture France and the Chamber Music of America. The prize was followed by
a tour on the East Coast in the U.S.
Extremely creative, Marc Glomeau is at the origin of numerous original
projects: Racines (a septet mixing Afro-Venezuelian cultures with those of Central
France) along with Marlon Simon and Gilles Chabenat, Mère
Grand & The Sound Avengers (a delirious pop concert revisiting TV-show
songs with a 70s twist to them), Akrofo System (exploring links between
jazz and African rhythms with pianist Philippe Monange). And, recently,
Hypnotic Wheels.
The Muddy Gurdy Mississippi
Project
Three years ago we created a trio, Hypnotic Wheels, based on a simple idea:
have Mississippi blues meet the hurdy-gurdy, an instrument which is emblematic
of our traditional music in Central France.
In our first album, released in October 2014, we alternated original songs
and revisited standards of the most authentic blues.
As we were thinking about our second album, Marco, the percussionist, got
this crazy idea: take the hurdy-gurdy to Mississippi. A year of work has been
necessary to bring the project together, with the help of a whole team and the
formidable enthusiasm shown by the American musicians we contacted: Cedric
Burnside, Shardé Thomas, Cameron Kimbrough, and Pat Thomas.
We chose to travel with a small recording unit which allowed us to record
in emblematic places in Mississippi (clubs, museum), but also in every-day
places (people’s front and back porches), like it was done early on.
We spent a month in Mississippi, from April 20th to May 15th, 2017, to meet
with these musicians who inherited a tradition from their famous parents and
grandparents, who wrote the history of the blues, especially the North
Mississippi Hill Country blues.
A documentary has been filmed showing this fantastic adventure : (Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPckuCh_cAw)
In today’s context, this project goes beyond music: it unites women and men
with different backgrounds, from different cultures, but who have in common
their love for music and are ready to open to other people. It is in this world
that we want to live.
By Marc Glomeau, founder and percussionnist of Hypnotic Wheels
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