How large was the audience and who were they?
The Glen Gould Studio seats close to 500, and the audience were just people who bought tickets to the show. When they put on a show there, people know that the hall sounds fantastic, and that it’s probably for a recording, so it’s quite a popular venue. It was open to everyone. The CBC in Canada are very progressive in many ways. They’ll go out and find the artist they want, get the venue, record them, and play that on the radio. And they’ll also offer the recording to the artist, which is what they did for me.

What lead to your choice of musicians?
The producer, Todd Fraracci, chose the Indian musicians for me, because I wasn’t familiar with too many Indian musicians in Toronto. He said that I should listen to this singer, Samidha Joglekar. She’s still a student at the University, but she has a wonderful tone, and her pitch is always correct. The tabla player, Ravi Naimpally, is pretty well known. Todd put us together for two days of rehearsal before the concert, and I taught everybody the songs. Steve Marriner, the harp player, had been on the road with me for a couple of years—he’s a young guy, too, early 20s—and Kevin Breit and I had made a couple of records and toured a fair bit already. George Koller is the bass player that you’d want to call if you could call anybody in Toronto. He’s got a lot of experience.

How and why did you select the songs?
They were mostly songs that I had been playing on the road for a few years—either originals or covers that I liked—and I thought I’d like to nail them down with a great group of people, once and for all. And if I never played any of them again, it would be a good snapshot of a moment—so I just went for that. I don’t mind playing covers. I’ve written a few decent songs, but there are so many great songs out there, that I don’t mind taking someone else’s song and try to play it.

Did the inclusion of “Samhida's Tune” serve a conceptual purpose?
On a live record, I try to put the songs in a kind of an order that will have some flow—a bit of a journey. Sometimes people don’t like live records for the stops and starts and whatnot. I just thought “Samhida's Tune” was such a beautiful aside.

You let the other musicians take most of the solo breaks.
My strength, musically, is laying down a groove and holding it. Other soloists love to dance on top of that. When I drop the groove, the other guys can kind of keep it going, but it’s a different groove, then. I always attempt the impossible, which is keeping the groove and playing a solo at the same time. It’s really hard to do it well—though guys like Charlie Hunter are pretty inspiring. There is the possibility of having all your limbs doing different things at once, so, I like to reach for that. And somebody pointed out the other day that there is no mohan veena on the live album, which was an oversight on my part. There were a lot of other songs played during the concert, but some of them were songs that I’d recorded on In Good We Trust, so I couldn’t re-release them for legal reasons. So we picked the songs that were clear.

Kevin Breit is a great player, but when we’re playing as a duo, if I drop out and try to play lead, there’s no context anymore, or at least the context isn’t as strong. I see from that that rhythm really is my forte. I’m sort of a decent lead player I guess. I used to do that with the electric lap-steel and a Tube Screamer and a delay, in some bands around Europe just for fun, and I loved the hell out of it. And I have a big attraction to one-man bands. I did that for years, with a drum on my back, so I come from that whole thing of having the groove and playing against it with the guitar.

You take precautions to avoid touring burnout.
I tend to err on the side of caution. I take a lot of vitamins and protein powders and all this crazy stuff to kind of boost my physical energy, because that’s sort of where it all starts for me on the road. If I’ve got the physical energy then I can handle a lot more changes and stress factors. I do meditate whenever I can, and that helps to keep the whole thing in perspective, that, “Yeah, it’s all very demanding and yet in the bigger picture, some things really don’t matter too much.” I think I got some of that from my time in India. They have a thing: “Don’t rush too much because you’re here for eternity,” and I like that idea. I try to keep a balance because I’m not a young man anymore, but I can handle the road pretty well—sometimes better than some of the younger guys that go out and just burn to bits real quick. Because I spend a lot of time on the road, I’ve found my pace. I bring a lot of stuff. I redecorate my hotel rooms with all my own personal things, and I rarely have to go out for much of anything once I get in a room. I can hold up there for a long time. And I work on my songs and whatnot on the road. I also call my family every day. SKYPE is a great thing—I’m so into talking on that. I can see my family and they can see me, what I’m up to. That’s really important. If you’ve got some roots somewhere—which is what I feel my family and my home are—it’s easier to fly away a little bit, because you know you’ve got something to come back to.

What is the Harry Zone and how does one enter it?
It’s what it is. As an example, when I first came to Saltspring Island, where I live I went to the local café that had an outdoor terrace one Saturday afternoon, and I asked if I could play there. The woman who ran it said, “I guess, but we’re not setting up the P.A. because we don’t know you.” I said okay and told her that I’d just arrived from India. I got my mohan veena out and I just forgot about all the worries I had about trying to get in the music business and began playing. And while I was grooving on it I thought to myself, “Yeah, that’s why I’m doing all this, just because I love it.” And I looked up, and I had a huge crowd of people, and the lady came out and said, “We’re setting the P.A. up.” So I guess it’s up to me [laughs]. If I can get into it, that’s it. When I get into it I notice that other people also get into it, so I guess that’s what it’s about. I’ve been in the B.B. King zone and the Buddy Guy zone, and I love it all, and Ravi Shankar definitely has his zone going on.

How did you get the gig with Richie Havens and what was it like working with him?
That was wonderful, because the last time I had seen Richie was when someone played me an old video of a Bob Dylan tribute concert. Richie’s version of “Just Like a Woman” had me in tears. Then I got a message that he would like me to come and play on a record if I was in NYC, and I was very excited to meet him, because he’s been a great part of the American musical experience. He’s been a real voice. People think of him when they think of Woodstock. I got there and he was a very friendly character, and really down to earth. He showed me a few of the songs, two originals and one song from Jackson Browne. He wanted me to play my mohan veena mostly, to give some Indian flavor—he likes that vibe. He has a kind of Indian connection. I did my best to bring some of that. We’re going to have a release party in NYC in October. As far as guitar styling, his is very unique, and because I play open-D, when he sat in front of me and played those things, I totally understood what he was doing.

What is it about your musical relationship with Kevin Breit that makes it so fruitful?
When I came to Canada, I went to the Folk Alliance meeting that they had in Vancouver, and I walked into a room where Kevin was sitting on the bed playing guitar, and this woman was singing, and she was standing up and waving her hands and moving around and dancing, attracting a lot of attention—but I never even looked at her, I just looked at what Kevin was doing and went, “Oh, okay, finally since I arrived I’ve seen a guy who just knocked me off my feet,” because I was waiting for that. And I thought it would be great to play together some time. I ended up at a festival some time a year or so later, and I was put on a workshop with him and his trio, and we didn’t even have a conversation, we just started playing. So there was a real natural connection with him right from the start. He has a great imagination to play with other people, being a studio musician, which is where he’s coming from.  —Barry Cleveland