“God has given us a special gift — the gift of singing,” marveled the Rev. J. Fortis Jyrwa of the Khasi Jaintia Presbyterian Assembly here.

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Many theories are offered for Shillong’s fascination with rock and the blues. Some argue that the area’s indigenous Khasi traditions are deeply rooted in song and rhyme. Some credit the 19th-century Christian missionaries who came from Britain and the United States, introduced the English language, hymns and gospel music and in turn made the heart ripe for rock. Some say the northeast, remote and in many pockets, gripped by anti-Indian separatist movements, has not been as saturated by Hindi film music as the rest of India.

Others speak of that ephemeral quality of rock ’n’ roll, able to seep into young, restless bones anywhere.

Consider Rewben Mashangva’s story. Twenty years ago Mr. Mashangva, a carpenter’s son, was at home in his tribal Naga village in neighboring Manipur state, near the border of Myanmar, when a friend came over, bearing Dylan cassettes. He played “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and to Mr. Mashangva, whose English remains broken, he explained the lyrics, line by line. Mr. Mashangva slowly fell in love. It was foreign music, to be sure, but how deeply it resonated with his landscape.

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“So relevant to our area,” he remembered thinking. “No drum, nothing, just guitar. Paddy field. Cows. Looking at the buffalo. So matching our area.”

Mr. Mashangva bought his first guitar at 15, from a trader who ferried it on his shoulder across the border from what was then Burma, on a buffalo caravan. It cost him $2 and was made of Burma teak. He taught himself how to play.

The local Baptist parish is where he first sang. From Voice of America radio came the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival and later Bob Marley. The blues, he concluded, came closest to the music of his people, except that the blues, as he is fond of saying, began only 150 years ago. “Our folk is a thousand years old.”

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Now 47 he calls himself “the father of the Naga folk blues.” Still the carpenter’s son, he refashions traditional instruments to suit the Western tonal scale and hooks them up to amplifiers: a one-string fiddle, a long bamboo flute, a yak horn, played with a mallet, like a cowbell. The Internet helps him spread his song (at the Web address myspace.com/rewbenmashangva).

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The musicians of the Indian northeast are today trying many different things. Kit Shangpliang, of Summer Salt, sings in Khasi what he calls “experimental indigenous rock.” Soulmate sings the blues. Phu Baba, 35, a self-described pagan priest from Manipur, says he draws on his own tribal traditions, except when friends turn him on to something alien. “Some of it really touches me,” he said, “like Pink Floyd.”

A band called Snow White has released an entire album of Khasi allegory, the story of one man and his encounters with modern perils, from corruption to a broken heart. One track is called “Five Year Gods,” and it is about politicians who make promises during the election season and do nothing in their five years in office. Their promises, it turns out, are eaten by termites. “Quite hollow,” says Don Ryntathiang, 32, the band’s bassist and lyricist. All of them recall growing up with music, and to varying degrees, getting their first musical education in church, since an estimated two-thirds of this state is Christian.

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“Me, I started playing guitar in church,” Mr. Ryntathiang said. “Three chords. I was in Class 7. My father didn’t encourage me. He said it’s going to get you nowhere.” His father, it turned out, had a band of his own and for a while sang Elvis covers.

“Rock music is the right medium for expressing our frustrations, our disappointments, our anger,” Mr. Ryntathiang added.

To his townfolk Mr. Majaw is either a hero or a hardhead. A vagabond event, his concert finds a different location each year. Some years, like this one, there are no sponsors, so Mr. Majaw pays to put on the show himself. On this May afternoon a testament of this homespun ritual was on display at the entrance to the parking lot. On a Dylan birthday banner, red ink on white cloth, 66 had been redrawn to 67.

Mr. Majaw is repeatedly asked whether he will one day bring Mr. Dylan to these woods.

“Lou Majaw cannot bring him,” he said, laughing. “I mean like he is such a busy guy. And Lou is broke as shattered glass, man.”

He confessed to having no idea how to reach Mr. Dylan (Mr. Majaw does not use the Internet), nor did he know whether Mr. Dylan was aware of the birthday party held here every year.

Then he laughed aloud at how Mr. Dylan might react to the news. “‘Who this Lou Majaw is? What’s wrong with him? He doesn’t have better things to do in life than celebrate my birthday? ‘”