Page 12 - BiTS_07_JULY_2021

BiTS: I gather that at some stage, you went to Mississippi, is that correct?

Tia: Yeah, I went several times to Mississippi and it’s a very special place to me. I know when I
travel, when I arrive in the United States, you know when you pass the border control, they always
ask you, “Where are you going to?” and when I say “I’m going to Mississippi”, the people are like,
but you’re a tourist and you go to Mississippi, why? Why don’t you go to California or New York or
Florida or whatever? For me, it’s one of the most beautiful places and I love it because of the music,
because of the people, because of the rhythm of life there. The people take time and when I come

back to France, every time I go to Mississippi, and then when I come back here, I always tell myself
that we are always stressed and life is very fast here, so that’s why I love going there too.

BiTS: Where is here, Tia? Where are you at
L-r:Muddy Gurdy Marc Glomeau, Gilles Chabenat, Tia
the moment?

Tia: I am in central France, close to

Clermont-Ferrand, where I live.

BiTS: Tell me how the band Muddy Gurdy
came to be? What made you decide to start
a band doing what you do?

Tia: We started in 2012. I didn’t know the
hurdy-gurdy player Gilles Chabenat. Before
that, I used to play a bit with Marc Glomeau, the percussionist of the band and Marc told me that he

would like to try a special trio with a hurdy-gurdy player. At first, I thought he was very bad
because I had a prejudice about the hurdy-gurdy. I didn’t like the sound very much and I was like
what are we going to do? He introduced me to Gilles Chebenat who showed me all the different
sounds he can make with the hurdy-gurdy, and I was fascinated because I realised that I was
completely wrong about this instrument.

Then we started to work together, and it was pretty new because there is no blues trio with the

hurdy-gurdy and percussion and guitar. We started to search which plays we’re going to have for
each instrument, and we realised that one style of blues
really matched with the hurdy-gurdy. It was the North
Mississippi hill country blues because its sound is
particular. It’s not like Chicago blues or West Coast. It’s

very hypnotic. Sometimes it’s on one chord and it really
matched with the hurdy-gurdy because it’s a very hypnotic
instrument and it was used to make the people dance after a
hard day job in the countryside, in the fields. They used to
do parties and the hurdy-gurdy was there to make people
dance and to support the singer during the melody. We
found this style of North Mississippi hill country blues

really interesting for our trio. We recorded our first album
in 2014 under the name of Hypnotic Wheels, then three Tia with Cedric Burnside
years later, we decided to go to North Mississippi around
Como and to record with the descendants, with the grandchildren of big names of these kind of
blues, Cedric Burnside, Sharde Thomas, Cameron Kimbrough and also Pat Thomas from another

region, we cut a record called Muddy Gurdy Mississippi Project. We decided to keep this name
Muddy Gurdy. I think it’s a good name for the music and the sound we have now because the hurdy-