“Life is indeed an accident,” says musician Joseph Manuel Roacha, 68, also known as ‘Slow Joe’. “I was severely addicted to drugs. And today I am severely addicted to music. The change from drugs to music has happened quite accidently,” adds Joseph.
A vocalist with a band from France, born and brought up in Mumbai, Joseph is in the city with his five-member band to entertain an Ahmedabad audience. They have already performed at Chandigarh and Jaipur, and after Ahmedabad, they will be at Delhi, Calcutta, Pondicherry, Bangalore and Mumbai.
“Their performances and touring is sponsored by Alliance Francaise, the France Embassy in India and the French Institute in Paris,” said Philippe Martin, director of Alliance Francaise in Ahmedabad.
The vocalist of the band, Joseph was a homeless drug-addict and was admitted to a rehabilitation centre in Delhi in 1994 under the supervision of the centre’s founder Neville Selhore – who helped him with a de-addiction program. Since he quit drugs and shifted from Delhi to Goa; he spent days singing improvised songs on the sea shore till he bumped into Cedric Dela Chapelle, a French guitarist, nicknamed Ginger there.
With Slow Joe and Ginger’s chance encounter in July 2007, they created a new genre of fusion music. “While I heard him singing on the shores of Goa, his music deeply appealed me,” said Cedric. “I recorded six compositions he sang and came to France and shared it with fellow artists. We practiced to create music for his melodies for three months and then returned to Goa to have him listen to our additions to his creations.” After this meeting on a beach of Goa, these artists decided to form their own band in 2008.
