Arinjoy Sarkar has the blues. The Blues guitarist, arguably the only one in India who has adopted the Chicago and Texas style of playing and emoting, has released his new EP Talkin’ That Talk. His Kolkata-based band, The Arinjoy Trio, has Aakash Ganguly on the bass guitar, Sounak Roy on drums and Sarkar who doubles as the songwriter. The four-song EP has gone global on soundbetter.com, a digital music directory of international artists. It is their second release since their debut record, The Arinjoy Trio
in 2019.
The EP opens with the groovy Blues for Kirk, an instrumental piece, followed by the lyrical Just Your Alibi, in which the trumpet evokes vintage charm. “UK-based Mike Snow wrote the trumpet, trombone, flugelhorn and saxophone sections while US-based Joe Deninzon played the strings section for the track Now I Think I Am Done,” says the 35-year-old Sarkar, who is heavily inspired by Albert King, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cage.
He found Blues as his calling after being introduced to the genre by his guitar teacher, the renowned Amyt Datta, who has also produced the album. The trio took it a notch higher when ace keyboardist and organ player John Mccullough of Ireland—who often plays with the legendary Van Morrison—agreed to play in Blues for Kirk and Why Are You Taking So Long. The EP has been mixed and mastered by US-based audio engineer Marc Urselli, who has worked with U2 and Elton John among the big guns.
Sarkar cut his teeth playing the guitar by learning the nuances from Datta. He also learned Western Classical from Shyamal Dey, before switching to Rock and Roll in his teenage years. The idea of forming
A blues triumvirate occurred to him around 2014. First, he had to upscale his vocal skills to get closer to the Mississippi feel. The band studied the genre before participating in and winning the Mahindra Blues Festival in 2018, which announced their arrival on the big stage.
The budget of the second album overshot the first, but Sarkar does not expect profits. “In the CD-less world, we cannot consider returns. English singer-songwriter Peter Frampton’s Baby I Love Your Way got 55 million hits on Spotify. The company, however, paid him only $1,700 in royalties. Returns are not something worth talking about,” adds Sarkar, who jammed with the legendary Buddy Guy and the young Kingfish at the Mahindra Blues Festival earlier this year. Their global tour to promote the EP starts early next year. The legendary Bobby King sang The Thrill is Gone. For The Arinjoy Trio, it has just started.