W’shop on Blues guitar by Rudy Wallang

If you hear the Blues brewing in any corner of the country, doubtless you will find it is none other than Rudy Wallang and his band “Soulmate”, concocting their heady potions of Blues, Blues-Rock and Soul.

And to let the head banging Naga youth experience and feel the sound of the soul soothing Blues music, Furtados School of Music, Dimapur, is gearing up to host a workshop on guitar (Blues) on September 1 from 4pm to 6pm with Rudy Wallang.
Entry to the workshop would be free.

Shillong based Rudy Wallang has been composing, recording and gigging now for the past 33 years and started off playing in the much acclaimed band “Great Society” before fronting the band “Mojo,” also a band that needs no introduction.

Today, he runs a home studio and leads his band “Soulmate”, nurturing the much under-rated Blues genre in the Indian music scene with some quality music, touring the length and breadth of the country and abroad.

As a guitar player, Rudy has been influenced by the likes of Roy Buchanan, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Steve Gaines, Albert Collins, Albert King, Freddie King, B.B King, Buddy Guy, Frank Zappa and more.

The guitar, to him, is an extension of his being and he has been playing a Fender Telecaster and Tex-Mex Stratocastor for as long as he can remember.

Rudy was approached by Furtados, Mumbai, to endorse the Greg Bennett line of guitars in India and is currently playing RL-3 which he is very comfortable with.

He was also given a Malibu (MB-30) to replace his Tex-Mex Strat but wasn’t very happy with the stock guitar.
It was then Furtados approached Samick and Greg Bennett to build a guitar for Rudy according to his specifications which they graciously did and Rudy is now the proud player/owner of his own custom built guitar.

Rudy has played over 800 gigs till date and has composed over 50 songs and instrumental, arranged, composed and produced music for over 70 albums (at his home studio) and has featured in the compilation CD Smoking Guns (RSJ’02) among the country’s best guitar players, won best guitar player in India for the Jack Daniel’s Awards, 2009, performed with Soulmate all over India as well as in Nepal, Indonesia, Bhutan, Singapore, France, Germany, Sweden and the US and Soulmate has represented India at the International Blues Challenge, Mephis, TN in February, 2007 and 2010 and were semi finalists both times, performed and conducted workshops at the ROOTS festival tour’07 covering seven cities as well as workshops in other cities in the country, featured in the inaugural issue of rolling Stone magazine as one of India’s top 10 guitar players.

Rudy is now endorsing Greg Bennett Guitars, Fender Amplification, Xotic Pedals, USA, D’Addario Strings, AKG:Mics, In Ear Wireless Monitoring Systems, Wireless Guitar systems.