The Raghu Dixit Project at the Albert Halls Bolton (From Asian Image)

The Raghu Dixit Project at the Albert Halls Bolton

9:20am Thursday 5th July 2012 in Entertainment By Asian Image reporter

Already a hit in his native India, Raghu Dixit is taking the UK by storm after appearing on Later with Jools Holland and The Andrew Marr Show.

Raghu was completely unknown in the UK when his first album was released here in 2010, but since then that debut set has spent months in the world music charts, as Raghu won over British audiences with his powerful, soulful vocals and unique, rousing blend of Indian and Western influences.

He played festivals and concert halls, won the Songlines Newcomer Award for 2011, and was invited to become an Artist In Residence at London’s Southbank. Now Raghu’s back with new recordings, new experimental projects and collaborations, and a lengthy series of live shows, including appearances at major festivals including WOMAD, Larmer Tree, Solas, Honeyfest and Bushstock.

Raghu is a singer-songwriter with a mission, a one-time scientist who gave up a highly successful career in Europe to return to India to create a new style of his own, which he describes as “Indian folk-rock, with world rhythms creeping in”.

He is based in the city of Bengaluru in southern India, and his aim, he says, is to bring new pride to those who speak the local language, Kannada, which is under threat as other language influences pervade.

So, Raghu set out to become an international artist, singing in Kannada as well as English, and in the process publicising the work of the great Kannada poets by setting their works to new music.

Raghu’s first new project of 2012 is the download EP “Live In York” (released March 12 through iTunes and others), recorded last summer with his band The Raghu Dixit Project in a stunning medieval church that is now a venue run by the National Centre for Early Music.

This is an intimate, largely acoustic set in which Raghu demonstrates his powerful vocal style and guitar work on favourites that include “No Man Will Ever Love You Like I Do”, the song that transformed his career when he sang it live on Later With Jools, to an audience that included fellow-guests Adele, Robert Plant and Arcade Fire.

This set also includes a new version of the witty and thoughtful “Gudugudiya Sedi Nodo”, written by one of the great Kannada poets, Saint Shishunala Sharif. And there’s one new song, the poignant English-language ballad “I Still Love You”, which was inspired by a romantic story from another Kannada poet, written over a hundred years ago.

Next up, there’s a brand new multi-media concept project. On April 18/19, Raghu will be back in the UK at London’s Southbank Alchemy Festival, along with his band, for the world premier of a multi-media work in which he will be joined by other Southbank Artists In Residence - choreographer Gauri Sharma Tripathi and her dancers, along with three members of Bellowhead (Andy Mellon on trumpet, Brendan Kelly on sax and percussionist Pete Flood). Based on the Hayavadana myth, it’s an Indian fantasy story from Karnataka that tells of “how humans are never satisfied with what we have and always want something more...but we are not always careful about what we wish for.

It’s a beautiful story and there are different versions of it around the world”.

The songs will be in Kannada, Hindi and English, with projections used to explain the story and to translate the lyrics. The Raghu Dixit Project will perform on Tuesday, July 24 at the Albert Halls Bolton.

Tickets are £15 and the show starts at 7.30pm.

To book, visit www.alberthalls-bolton.co.uk or contact the box office on 01204 334400.