Jack Mantis

Jack was part of the project from the first second we met. The South African saw us for the first time in Trinidad and Tobago while he was standing on the docks watching “Marianne” getting towed into the harbour of Chaguaramas after her two week journey from French Guyana without wind and a broken engine. He saw our logo on the bow as we were towed past him – our sailing guitar – and thought to himself: “Ah, these guys pretty much look like musicians. I play guitar myself, so I’ll go and knock on their ship’s side later.” He knocked and shortly after we met each other for a beer in the harbour café to tell him about our Sailing Conductors project. We showed him our “Travelling Man” video and ten seconds into the track Jack was in. He was the first person I’d ever seen to start crying after a few seconds. With tears still in his eyes we fixed a time for the next day to record Jack’s new song “Radiate” in an old military base on a nearby mountain. He had just written this song on his own Atlantic crossing on a sailboat from Cape Town to Brazil.

jackmantisband.com

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