Jamie St Clair

Jamie St Clair
Born in Ohio, raised in Ohio. Where did I get the idea I needed to go to India to live? I sure didn’t pick it up in Ohio. High school in Springfield, Oh, the bible belt, was me listening to CSNY, Grand Funk Railroad, and Santana, reading JRR Tolkien like 5 times, cover to cover, and looking around me with the feeling like, yes there really must be something else.

College at Otterbein College, north of Ohio State in Columbus, was a lot of time in the theater as a theater major, voice lessons, and playing on the side with friends. Again covers of CSNY, it’s just the vocals which really drew me in. Then I read Castenada’s “Journey to Ixtlan” and everything changed. That along with reading about Buddha in my non Western religion class knocked a screw loose. Later in Sarasota, FL at the acting conservatory part of FL State U, going for a masters of fine arts degree, I picked up a book by (then) Bhagwan Rajneesh, now Osho, and again, everything changed. Never finished graduate school, never missed it. The real adventure began. I think everyone should live in a third world country for a while. That’s where the real education happens. Life in the fast lane.

In the ashram in India I started making music for meditations, learning to use sound as a container for the soundless, for silence. Nothing better, it changed everything I knew about music. Still is. I met Chinmaya, we composed and performed the tracks that ended up being “Celtic Ragas”, New Earth Records picked it up, and it turned into what he and I ended up renaming “The album that never dies” because it kept on selling. Finally, Paul McCartney’s agent called New Earth up, and asked if Celtic Ragas were a band, because Sir Paul wanted the band to play at his wedding coming up. So we did. A high point. Heady. Chatting to Paul about my music. He’s actually a nice guy, at least my impression.

As a famed author once put it, one thing led to another, and I ended up in Boulder, CO. Fell in and out of love so many times, I lost count, and then one time got the medicine I had been dishing out back in my face. Another big change, and I started writing vocal songs with lyrics. Rock and roll songs. Influenced by Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, the Eagles, Steely Dan, Pat Metheny, Ry Cooder, and Eric Clapton. Running into my limitations again and again, until two people finally got through to me. Derek Sivers who wrote some article about Never Give Up. So I didn’t. And my beloved partner, Arpita, who one day simply told me, “You’re trying too hard (singing), just relax and let it go for God’s sake.” So I did, and it started sounding totally fine.

Nitin Joshi, sound engineer

Then I met Nitin Joshi at Sound Ideaz in Pune, who was able to finish the mixing which was all over the place, and did a perfect job. Sometimes, I changed his mix. Then after a few weeks, I would listen to the part I changed, realize it was off slightly, and call him up and ask him to redo it the way HE had it originally. Then it would sound great. So with INFUSION, I asked a bunch of people to record, and they all said yes. So I’m working with a collection of experienced musicians in the studio, Talia, Ashik, Kit, everyone’s got a lot of experience on the stage as well. I’m really happy with how it turned out for this album.

Praashekh playing sarod on All Along the Watchtower

The style has been compared to Crosby, Stills & Nash meets Ry Cooder, which I’m flattered by, but isn’t totally acurate. The vocals on songs like Let Go of Love, Sermons in Stones, and All Along the Watchtower I guess are reminiscent of the CSN harmonies. The Ry Cooder reference of course is to the acoustic slide guitar, but the instrument in question is not a guitar at all, it’s the East Indian sarod. The sarod is a fretless instrument that looks a bit like a banjo and has something like 5 main strings and 18 harmonic strings. Praashekh playing the sarod definitely adds something to the mix very alive, exotic, and also totally drives and is original. I mean there’s Jai Uttal doing some great stuff, but that’s really a Westerner playing the instrument, and that’s just a different feeling.

The cover of All Along the Watchtower, is done with an undertone of pointing up the Matrix-like inference of the first line “There must be some way out of here…” as if the Joker were a version of Neo looking to get out of the Matrix.

Which is kind of what it’s all about. Not about getting out, but about going IN. UNDER. The personality, and all it’s superficial survival based traits. Getting real. Healing. Now it’s just listening to the silence, and enjoying the music. With friends.