Muruga Booker

Muruga Booker
Muruga Booker
Background information
Birth name	Steven Bookvich
Born	(1942-12-27) 27 December 1942 Detroit, United States
Genres	Jazz, rock, ambient, freestyle, funk, folk, new-age, techno
Occupation(s)	Musician, businessman, Orthodox priest, yoga instructor
Instruments	Drums, nada drum, percussion, congas, vocals, guitar, synthesizer
Years active	1958–present
Labels	Musart, Sagittarius, Qbico, Chesky
Associated acts	Weather Report Paul Winter Consort Peter Gabriel George Clinton Funkadelic Merl Saunders Rainforest Band Jerry Garcia Mickey Hart Bob Dylan Allen Ginsberg Babatunde Olatunji Sikiru Adepoju Tim Hardin Gunter Hampel Mike Hinton John Lee Hooker Al Kooper Bootsy Collins David Peel Brenda Lee Mitch Ryder Ted Nugent Darius Brubeck Dave Brubeck Jim & Jean Perry Robinson Swami Satchidananda
Website	Musartco
Notable instruments
Nada Drum

Muruga Booker (born December 27, 1942) is an American drummer, composer, recording artist, and uncanonical Greek Orthodox priest.^[1]

Biography

Booker was born Steven Bookvich in Detroit, Michigan on December 27, 1942 at Highland Park General, and is of Serbian descent.^[2] His father, Melvin Bookvich, was a shoemaker who played accordion.^[3] He has a wife, Shakti; a daughter, Rani; and a son, Aaron, from a previous marriage.^[4] Booker and his family moved back to the Detroit area from Oakland, California in 2000 and currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.^[5]

Musical career

Booker first played the accordion before taking up drums as a pre-teen. He studied drums under Misha Vishkov, a Russian music teacher. He first professionally played drums with "The Low Rocks" in Detroit as Steve Booker.^[6] Under that name he also achieved local recognition playing with the "Thunder Rocks"^[7] and The Spike Drivers,^[8] and was known for his long, driving drum solos. He shared the bill at venues like Detroit's Eastown Theatre and Grande Ballroom with Ted Nugent (2/23/70), Traffic (6/5/70 & 6/6/70), Jack Bruce (2/13/70 & 2/14/70), and others.

At the first Woodstock Festival, where he played drums with Tim Hardin, along with then-partner cellist Richard Bach^[9] he met Swami Satchidananda who invited him to visit him at the Integral Yoga Institute ^[10] in New York, where he gave him the name Muruga.^[11] In 1973 - 1974, he performed with Weather Report^[12] and appeared on their albums Sweetnighter and Mysterious Traveller.^[13] In the late 1970s and early 1980s Booker lived in New York and played with David Peel on "King of Punk" and "Death to Disco" and Peel's Underground Comeback Hit "Junk Rock" (Muruga introduced his "Electric Talking Drum" on this song, production was by Sherwin Winick), then moved back to Detroit in 1980 where he connected with funk legend George Clinton and became an official P-Funk All-Star.^[14] His band at that time, Muruga and the Soda Jerks, recorded several albums produced by George Clinton.

In mid-1985 he moved to Oakland, California and formed the band Muruga UFM, which included Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist James Gurley. In 1990, after performing with Prem Das on the classic drum meditation album Journey of the Drum, he joined Merl Saunders and formed Merl Saunders and the Rainforest Band with Jerry Garcia, performing with them on the Grammy-nominated album Blues From the Rainforest. In 2000 Booker formed the band Muruga and The Global Village Ceremonial Band,^[15] which released the CD One Global Village, featuring P-Funk vocalist Belita Woods and jazz clarinetist Perry Robinson. They played at several festivals including the Starwood Festival, Rhythm Fest 1 with Mickey Hart, and Rhythm Fest 2 with Airto Moreira. In 2002 his recording company Musart and the Association for Consciousness Exploration co-hosted the SpiritDrum Festival, a tribute to Babatunde Olatunji, also featuring Sikiru Adepoju, Badal Roy, Jeff Rosenbaum, Halim El-Dabh, Perry Robinson, and Jim Donovan of Rusted Root.^[16] Since 2003 he has also been playing and recording with jazz saxophonist Mark Hershberger, and Richard Smith as the Global Jazz Trio ^[17]^[18] and Mark Hershberger's expanded five piece group as the Global Jazz Project. In 2004, with most of the same musicians as Muruga & GVCB, Muruga formed the band Free Funk (also featuring Trey Lewd, and Louie Kabbabie), which plays mostly in the Detroit area.^[19] Booker continues to work with George Clinton and play with the P-Funk All Stars whenever they performed in California, and occasionally elsewhere. He also plays and records with the brother/sister duo The White Ravens.^[20] His most recent project is Muruga Booker & the Cosmic Hoedown Band, featuring him (drums,guitar, & vocals), Shakti Booker (vocals & drums), Parliament Funkadelic member Tony "Strat" Thomas (guitar), Patrick Sarniak (guitar), Benjamin Piner (bass), Douglas Weaver (bass), and Ralph Koziarski (woodwinds, brass & percussion).^[21]

In 2012 & 2014 Muruga won a Detroit Music Award for "Outstanding World Music Instrumentalist". In 2014 he won the Detroit Music Award for "Outstanding World Music Recording" for "Joty Drums" by Muruga Booker, Pandit Samar Saha, & John Churchville. ^[22]

Recording history highlights

Through the 1960s, as Steve Booker, he recorded with Jim and Jean on Changes in 1964, and on People World in 1966. He appeared on the Paul Winter Consort's Something in the Wind in 1968, and recorded a meditation record with Swami Satchidananda in 1969. During the 1970s he recorded with Darius Brubeck, Gunter Hampel, Al Kooper, Ursa Major, and with Weather Report on their albums Sweetnighter in 1973 and Mysterious Traveler in 1974.^[23] Muruga's band, Muruga and the Soda Jerks, were produced by George Clinton, and he recorded with George Clinton, Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins, and the P-Funk All Stars on the following records:

1985 - George Clinton - Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends
1984 - Muruga & The Soda Jerks - Boogy With You (45)
1983 - George Clinton - You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit Fish
1983 - P-Funk All Stars - Urban Dance Floor Guerillas
1982 - George Clinton - Computer Games
1982 - Godmama (w/Bootsy Collins) - Here
1981 - Funkadelic - The Electric Spanking of War Babies
1993 - George Clinton - Hey Man, Smell My Finger
1995 - P-Funk All Stars - Dope Dogs
2012 - Muruga Booker, Pandit Samir Saha, John Churchville - Joty Drums
2013 - Muruga & The Cosmic Hoedown Band - Changing The Sound of Your Room
2014 - The Muruga Band - Michigan Mud

In mid-1985 his band Muruga UFM recorded Terroristic Activities 1990 and Rock the Planet 1993. In 1990 he, his wife Shakti, and Prem Das recorded the long-selling Journey of the Drums, a pioneering drum album. That same year, Booker joined Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia to record the Grammy-nominated album (and subsequent DVD) Blues From the Rainforest,^[24] and their live CDs Save the Planet So We'll Have Someplace to Boogy (1992) and Fiesta Amazonica (1998). He also joined Babatunde Olatunji and Sikiru Adepoju to record the CD Cosmic Rhythm Vibrations 1993, which was later remixed and distributed on Chesky Records as Circle of Drums in 2005.^[25] With his Detroit-based band Free Funk, he recorded the self-titled colored vinyl LP titled Free Funk in 2005 which was released by Qbico Records. This band released the album OrthoFunkOlogy in 2008. Since then he has released several albums on his label Musart, including collaborations with many jazz, funk and World Music artists.

Other achievements

Booker invented the nada drum, a variation on the talking drum, which was sold through Latin Percussion.
He is a recipient of the 1991 Hiroshima Voices for Peace award.^[26]
He was ordained as an Orthodox priest, and operates his own chapel, St. Gregory Palamas, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
He built and operates his own recording studio, Sage Ct. Studios, and founded his own record label, Musart.

Filmography

1990 - Blues From the Rainforest, Ryko UPC 00688321200424
2005 - One: The Movie, Circle of Bliss Productions
2012 - Groovemonster, Quantum Media Arts
2014 - Border City Music Project

References

External links

Authority control	MusicBrainz: 5723d84a-ddf8-4c84-a45a-78068af2c7be

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