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Michael Franti of Spearhead was just another musician on the road, eating at truck stops, sleeping poorly, and putting "extraneous chemicals into my body," he says.
Then along came yoga.
Sting and Madonna are major believers in yoga, but Franti (above center) has gone even further and released a new DVD, "Power to the Peaceful Yoga" (Acacia). It features a yoga demonstration by him (backed by his music) with his New York teachers, David Life and Sharon Gannon, who also teaches Sting. It's quite a document, suitable for beginners and advanced yogis alike, though beginners should not try some of these poses.
The tattooed Franti presents quite a picture on his yoga mat. His dreadlocks are tied back, and he is surrounded by instruments - guitars, congas, and a drumkit - but they're just there for ambience. The focus is Spearhead's yoga poses. He is extraordinarily adept at twists, inversions, and forward bends, especially, and he keeps right up with his teachers, who do the same poses on either side of him.
Franti's music provides the soundtrack and is a nice collage of instrumental jazz-pop, funk, reggae, and fingerpicked folk. In the DVD's bonus features, he finally picks up a guitar and plays two beautiful, solo-acoustic songs: "Nobody Right, Nobody Wrong" and "Bomb the World."
Some of the narration is preachy - this style of hatha yoga is called Jivamukti yoga and stresses spiritual activism - so there are frequent comments about vegetarianism and anti-corporate values, but the yoga is sublime any way you look at it. [Steve Morse]
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