CLOTHESLINE REVIVAL INTERVIEWS
A Conversation with Robert Powell (continued)

RP: Like I was saying, I played with Shana Morrison for a while and we did an album at my house, her first album, Caledonia. That was a great band and we did a whole range of music, R&B and country and reggae and all sorts of stuff. And then we started writing songs and made that album.

We put the record together ourselves, and then Monster Music, the label that grew out of the Monster Cable Company, picked it up. They have a number of albums out in a wide range, they're not very style specific. They put a new cover on it, remastered it, got it in all the Tower stores, and it did really well. Then an ABC TV show called Early Edition, about a guy who somehow gets the newspaper the day before things happen and then spends the episode trying to change reality or whatever [laughs], they used all the songs on the record except one, which was the Van Morrison cover we did. So that was really big exposure for that album.

And then I met Sukhawat. I got a call from this guy Kavi Alexander--

PM: The guy who did that amazing slide guitar record with Ry Cooder and Vishwa Bhatt [A Meeting By The River].

RP: Exactly. Around that time Kavi was very high on the response he got from that record. He thought he would do a lot more of this combining of the music of different countries, you know, East meets West and beyond. He heard about me and called me up, inviting me to go down and play pedal steel with Ustad Salamat Ali Khan.

PM: Sukhawat's dad...

RP: That's right. I think this recording still exists--it was a wild session and my introduction to Indian vocals through this absolutely amazing singing by Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, and the two sons, Sharafat and Shafqat. We did a couple of nights of recording in this certain church, a chapel in this seminary in Santa Barbara, which is where Kavi also did the recording of the Cooder/V.M. Bhatt album. Kavi has a lot of other albums out, but the one with Cooder was the one that really broke through. Everything was recorded absolutely live to two-track, this big audiophile tube mic to one-inch two-track. It was great, except that it was kind of like learning Indian music on the fly.

PM: Man, what pressure! And with such heavy dudes.

RP: Yeah! And it couldn't really be a meeting in the middle, you know? [laughs] There were very strict forms, ways things had to be played, like these eight notes going up and then these six this way, these very specific things. So I'd go for a few minutes before we'd do it and pick these things out on the steel, because there were all these interesting and infinite ways to do it, but... There were some magic moments, but there were some moments where, boy... [laughing] "This is a whole other world!"

But through that we all became friends. They came up to San Francisco and we did a bunch of concerts. And then I started studying Indian music with them. Sukhawat and his sister, Riffat Salamat, were living in San Francisco, and I met them after I'd met the father and the other brothers. I became particularly close with Sukhawat.

PM: Oh man, he's magic. Just from my telephone conversation with him, I already feel so close to the guy.

RP: Yeah. He's a big-hearted person. And an incredible singer, of course. We did some gigs together, and we were together in a version of the band called Ali Khan, which in turn became Shabaz, the band they're in now. Richard [Michos], who married Riffat, is an old friend of mine from other bands. Sukhawat and I have written some stuff together over the years--which we're actually just recently trying to complete. Of the family, to my ear Sukhawat's the one who's most able to stretch out into different kinds of music with the best results. He's been living in San Francisco, and he's been living in the west the longest, and there's an openness to exploring and a strong rapport between him and western musicians. He always brings something really magic to anything he does.

About my music, I've got a site, robertpowellmusic.com--I'm just working on updating it now, but anybody interested can go there for info in the near future.

PM: Shoot me a mailing address, will you? I gotta send you a couple of records.

RP: That would be great.

[He gives me an address and we take a quick tour of Fairfax until I locate his street on my memory map.]

PM: I spoke with Conrad about sending out some music to him, because I'd love to co-create something with him. And I'd love to have you be involved as well.

RP: I'd really like that, man. Yeah. How we might work together is pretty open, but I'd love to send you some new songs of mine as they get done, so you can be aware of where I'm taking it.

PM: All about it. Beautiful.

(To see more of the series of Clark Thomas photographs of E.T Wickham's work, from which the Of My Native Land cover art was made, visit simplephotographs.com. And if you'd like to learn more about E.T. Wickham, check out the webpages created as a tribute by his grandson, and the pages at the Customs House Museum.)

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