
Nur Michael Keith has been living on Cortes Island for the past 6 years, but has been a professional musician for most of his 56 years.
In the beginning of a two part series, he talks a little about his earlier life, inspirations and we listen to three of his songs.
At one point during our interview I asked about his first name, ‘Nur.’
Michael explained, “It was something I gave myself. ‘Michael’ is from my birth parents, ‘Keith’ is from my adoptive parents and ‘Nur’ I gave myself. I sometimes go by Nur Michael Keith.”
“‘Nur’ is an Arabic name that means ‘light’ and one of my biggest inspirations on my journey musically and spiritually was from a man named Nur Ali Elahi.”
“He is mostly known as Ostad Elahi, and he passed away in the early 70s. He was a spiritual figure, but he played an instrument that I’ve studied from Iran called the tambour, it’s a lute with two or three strings. He never performed publically. He just played at home. He was a judge, but his family recorded him without his knowledge. Fifty years after his passing, they started to slowly release some of these recordings.”
“I was so moved by the brilliance of just a man and a three stringed lute. It was really life changing for me. A few years ago, as I started to feel a transformation of myself spiritually after a lot of difficult things, I decided, as a tribute to him and to inspire myself – someone who’s struggled with a lot of anxiety and self doubt for decades – I gave myself the name Nur.’”

“It’s confused a lot of people here. They have asked me, ‘What the heck is it all about?’ I debated for so long if I should use that, but, it felt like an important thing for me jnot to attract attention, but more to inspire myself to explore and move in and allow myself to grow and change.”
“Some people asked if I was Muslim. I’m not a Muslim, but I’m a big fan of Sufism and also of Advaita Vedanta, a non dualist thought from India. So many words and things, but they all go to the same thing.”
Michael said he comes from a ‘total unmusical family, being an adopted guy. It was the hobby that everyone wished would go away, and it still hasn’t.”
MK: “I was very much into heavy rock when I was younger. I probably started playing because of Kiss, which is odd to me, but not long after I started listening to Johnny Winter, John McLaughlin, jazz and blues people.”

“In my early twenties, I knew I wanted to do it full time. I was really into the blues and then realized I needed to try to start singing because that was the only way I was going to be able to be independent and not have to worry about a band. In Toronto, where I’m from, I had a bit of a name and a following as a blues rock guitar player for a while in my late twenties.”
“I had a chance to audition for a Texas band that was formed after Stevie Ray Vaughan had passed. His rhythm section formed a new band called the Archangels, and a guy from MCA recommended me because their guitar player had a drug problem, or something like that. I recorded a demo at the request of MCA in Canada and was given all this stuff to send to this manager in Austin. I wasn’t happy with the demo and I chickened out. I remember the Toronto Star got hold of this story and it was ‘Local Musician Gets a chance at the Big Time.’ I never actually sent the tape, but I still feel so thrilled that someone actually considered me for that at one time.”
“Carlos Del Junco is a pretty famous harmonica player, a virtuoso, jazz and blues, and I toured with him, as his guitarist, for many years in the 90s.”

“Then I spent a period playing free jazz in the early 2000s and toured in Europe and Asia with people doing very avant garde stuff, but there is a scene for it worldwide. It’s usually just other practitioners of that music going to see it. I was very, very fortunate and I even played in Venice, which was still one of my favorite experiences. Going to a gig in the little boat with my amp and going through the canals. I played in Taiwan because I composed some music for a pretty famous Buddhist master Hsing Yun from the Fo Guang Shan temple. I studied traditional Chinese music for a while, Iranian music and in the last two years, I’ve studied some Carnatic music online, with a Indian music Divina. So I’ve all kinds of exciting stuff and managed to make a meager living through it all, just scraping by.”
CC: What inspires your music?
MK: “It’s changed over the years, but at one point it took a turn towards a very deep spiritual connection for me. It’s a way for me to be in conversation with the highest truth, if you want to say God or the universe, it elevates me to something that’s hard to put into words.”
“My big thing as a musician is as an improviser, so when I’m in that flow, it’s like you’re a conduit for what’s flowing through, there’s no greater thing. In those moments, I lose a sense of me as an individual and I feel a sense of completeness. It’s just pure awareness and I’ve had experiences a few times that are nothing short of a mystical experience where I felt that something else was playing the music and I was just observing it. In those moments, everything’s wonderful and I’m forever trying to get back to those when I’m not there.”
“I love traditional music of the world probably more than anything because they’re usually not trying to pander to trends. I’ve studied some of these and I like humility and sincerity in music. I don’t really connect with pop stuff that much.”
“I don’t do drugs. I drink nonalcoholic beer. I had a terrible period for a number of years when I was younger, off and on with that stuff, with alcohol, but for the longest time now, that would just get in the way of the connection.”
“For some people, that is how they make that connection. For me, music is like a sacred act, like a church of sorts and I’m compelled to keep doing it.”
“I’ve had a few health things, and they’ve been very sobering. All of us do, especially as we get older.”
“I just feel so fortunate that I can experience what I can through music. I like the challenge of trying to do something that satisfies me artistically, but also that is not overly alienating for the listener.”

CC: Tell me a little bit about the three MP3s you sent.
MK: “All three of the pieces are recorded.”
“I have a nice recording set up here in my place. Things have changed so much in the last 20 years for recording. With a nice laptop and an audio interface, a guitarist, especially, can do so much. It’s incredible, and gets really nice sounding results. I really enjoy that process, and I do it pretty much every day. I have for years.”
“I like to keep a lot of first takes. The pieces that I’m writing now are just melodies that will come to me through improvisation, or just in my head throughout the day.”

“Lonely Giant was inspired after having a long talk about a Sasquatch and I wanted to convey the mood of a huge, lonely creature trekking through the forest and all the mysteries surrounding that. I love the melody that had come to me, it just gave me goosebumps.”
MK: “I use different electronics, some electronic drums on the computer.”
“I like these modern sounds. I love acoustic sounds too. A lot of my friends and peers, steer away from that stuff, but I always want to embrace the new technologies. I really like stuff like that, it’s all done by me. I will create some drums on the computer as a backdrop and then play these melodies over.”
MK: “All three pieces I sent you are a repetitive thing. It’s definitely not like a standard folk or pop song. I like thinking of them as musical mandalas or mantras even. Nothing too deep, but that’s what’s going on with them.”
In part two of this series, Nur Michael Keith talks about his life on Cortes island.
Music credits for Podcast:
- Michael Keith provided the audio files for ‘Lonely Giant,’ ‘Book of Signs’ and ‘Kala,’ which were played in the podcast.
Top image credit: Michael Keith – submitted photo
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