{"id":31047,"date":"2026-05-21T05:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31047"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:28:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T13:28:04","slug":"aki-kumars-bollywood-blues-part-1-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/aki-kumars-bollywood-blues-part-1-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Aki Kumar\u2019s Bollywood Blues (Part 1 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This feature first appeared in<\/em> Living Blues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Genre mashups are nothing new; for decades, musical artists have combined styles. In the process, some new forms have arisen: folk-rock, jazz fusion and so on. But in most cases, the traditions being combined have a common musical DNA, often traced back to Western music from Africa, Europe and\/or North America. In that respect, Aki Kumar is an outlier. His brand of the blues is informed by greats like Little Walter, but it\u2019s also indelibly suffused with the character of his native India. The result is a sound that\u2019s familiar and exotic all at once.<\/p>\n

Aki Kumar was born and raised in Mumbai, nearly 9,000 miles from the Mississippi River Delta. But his love for (and understanding of) the blues is heartfelt and genuine. \u201cMy parents were the primary source of my musical inspiration,\u201d he says. \u201cThey were not musicians, but they loved music.\u201d Kumar\u2019s father worked a government job, and his mother \u2013 a former teacher \u2013 was a stay-at-home mom. \u201cThey never really got an outlet for their artistic pursuits,\u201d Kumar explains. But he recalls that he and his older brother always heard their mom singing around the house. \u201cAnd our dad loved music; he listened to everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Kumars didn\u2019t often have extra disposable income for luxuries like records, but when he could, Aki\u2019s father would purchase select titles. \u201cOnce every three or four months he would go to a record meet in Mumbai, and he\u2019d buy something: Mozart, or some Hindustani Indian classical music,\u201d Kumar recalls.<\/p>\n

There was a sampling of international pop music in the Kumar household as well. Aki says that his family\u2019s collection didn\u2019t number much in excess of 30 records, but it was a wonderfully varied lot: \u201cStevie Wonder, John Denver, a great Beatles compilation; for me as a kid, some of the best stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there were no blues records in the Kumar household; the American musical form was unknown to young Aki. \u201cIn India, if you were musically aware, Bollywood music was the constant in the soundscape,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had one TV station in the \u201880s, and it wasn\u2019t until the 1990s that India\u2019s economy opened up.\u201d He laughs and admits, \u201cI had no idea that the blues was even a genre until I moved to the U.S.!\u201d<\/p>\n

As a young man, Kumar developed a keen perspective on global sociopolitical issues. But he didn\u2019t have an outlet to express those ideas; that would come after he established himself as a musician. First, though, he focused on his education.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents came from a very economically distressed background,\u201d he says, explaining that many people in India use education as a means to lift themselves out of that situation. So both he and his brother pursued higher education in the U.S. \u201cI [first] ended up in Oklahoma,\u201d Kumar says, \u201cbecause that was the cheapest place for me to go.\u201d Studying computer science and software engineering, he eventually transferred to San Jose State University, from which he graduated. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve stayed here,\u201d he says with pride. \u201cI\u2019ve lived here 26 years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

In between his studies, Kumar indulged his passion for music. The harmonica was sometimes featured in Bollywood music, so he was familiar with the instrument. But when he heard harmonica on an old John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers record, he became even more interested. \u201cIt was in a Sonny Boy Williamson style,\u201d Kumar says, \u201cthough I didn\u2019t know that at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kumar was entranced. \u201cI thought, \u2018So this small thing can make all of that sound? I don\u2019t know how they do it, but I\u2019m going to find somebody who can show me.\u2019\u201d He signed up for lessons from blues harmonica educator (and founder of San Jose-based School of the Blues) David Barrett. Kumar\u2019s instructor suggested that he check out a local band playing Chicago-style blues. He did, and that was his first exposure to the music of Jimmy Reed. \u201cI remember that the whole thing consumed me,\u201d Kumar says. \u201cThe groove, the sound, the tonality.\u201d That experience led him down a path of exploration, focusing on traditional blues.<\/p>\n

Kumar took his studies very seriously. \u201cI come from a background where you study; it\u2019s just what you do,\u201d he says. Woodshedding on his own, he developed skills on a variety of blues harps. Kumar notes a lesson he learned early from Barrett: \u201cIn the blues world, every harmonica is different; you have to dial in your technique to work on each one.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was struck in particular by the powerful characters in the blues, greats like Muddy Waters, Howlin\u2019 Wolf and Junior Parker. \u201cThey were experimental in a way that\u2019s a little \u2018punk,\u2019\u201d he suggests. \u201cAnd then you had young geniuses like Little Walter.\u201d He also immersed himself in the music of a later generation of players that would include Charlie Musselwhite and Paul Butterfield. \u201cThey inherited from the masters,\u201d Kumar emphasizes.<\/p>\n

Around 2008, he earned his so-called Green Card, giving him the right to live and work permanently in the United States. After working in the tech world for a decade, now he could start playing gigs. \u201cI\u2019m a naturalized citizen now, but I\u2019m still terrified coming back to the U.S. from overseas,\u201d he says. But even in the years before government-encouraged antipathy toward foreigners and immigrants, Kumar was hesitant. So having that Green Card made him feel a little more confident.<\/p>\n

Way back during his Mumbai childhood, Kumar had been gently prodded by his mom to put himself in front of an audience. \u201cEven if I was seven and it was a stage play, she encouraged me,\u201d he says. Those early experiences onstage served him well in the 21st<\/sup> century when he started singing and playing harmonica with local Bay Area bands.<\/p>\n

Kumar recalls an early gig. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even a group, because I fell in with them right before they disbanded,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it was great, because I got to do all those things: learn where to park the car, pull the amp out, drag it on the sidewalk, put it up on the stage, dial it in. I had never done any of those things!\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This feature first appeared in Living Blues. Genre mashups are nothing new; for decades, musical artists have combined styles. In the process, some new forms have arisen: folk-rock, jazz fusion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31050,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41,49,76],"tags":[5708],"class_list":["post-31047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","category-new-release","category-world","tag-aki-kumar","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-76-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31579,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31047\/revisions\/31579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}