
One of the most prominent figures in late 20th century blues,
singer/multi-instrumentalist Taj Mahal played an enormous role in
revitalizing and preserving traditional acoustic blues. Not content
to stay within that realm, Mahal soon broadened his approach,
taking a musicologist's interest in a multitude of folk and roots
music from around the world -- reggae and other Caribbean folk,
jazz, gospel, R&B, zydeco, various West African styles, Latin,
even Hawaiian. The African-derived heritage of most of those forms
allowed Mahal to explore his own ethnicity from a global
perspective and to present the blues as part of a wider musical
context. Yet while he dabbled in many different genres, he never
strayed too far from his laid-back country blues foundation. Blues
purists naturally didn't have much use for Mahal's music, and
according to some of his other detractors, his multi-ethnic fusions
sometimes came off as indulgent, or overly self-conscious and
academic. Still, Mahal's concept was vindicated in the '90s, when a
cadre of young bluesmen began to follow his lead -- both acoustic
revivalists (Keb' Mo', Guy Davis) and eclectic bohemians (Corey
Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart). Taj Mahal was born Henry St. Clair
Fredericks in New York on May 17, 1942. His parents -- his father a
jazz pianist/composer/arranger of Jamaican descent, his mother a
schoolteacher from South Carolina who sang gospel -- moved to
Springfield, Massachusetts, when he was quite young, and while
growing up there, he often listened to music from around the world
on his father's short-wave radio. He particularly loved the blues
-- both acoustic and electric -- and early rock & rollers like
Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. While studying agriculture and animal
husbandry at the University of Massachusetts, he adopted the
musical alias Taj Mahal (an idea that came to him in a dream) and
formed Taj Mahal & the Elektras, who played around the area
during the early '60s. After graduating, Mahal moved to Los Angeles
in 1964 and, after making his name on the local folk-blues scene,
formed the Rising Sons with guitarist Ry Cooder. The group signed
to Columbia and released one single, but the label didn't quite
know what to make of their forward-looking blend of Americana,
which anticipated a number of roots rock fusions that would take
shape in the next few years; as such, the album they recorded sat
on the shelves, unreleased until 1992. Frustrated, Mahal left the
group and wound up staying with Columbia as a solo artist. His
self-titled debut was released in early 1968 and its stripped-down
approach to vintage blues sounds made it unlike virtually anything
else on the blues scene at the time. It came to be regarded as a
classic of the '60s blues revival, as did its follow-up, Natch'l
Blues. The half-electric, half-acoustic double-LP set Giant Step
followed in 1969, and taken together, those three records built
Mahal's reputation as an authentic yet unique modern-day bluesman,
gaining wide exposure and leading to collaborations or tours with a
wide variety of prominent rockers and bluesmen. During the early
'70s, Mahal's musical adventurousness began to take hold; 1971's
Happy Just to Be Like I Am heralded his fascination with Caribbean
rhythms, and the following year's double-live set, The Real Thing,
added a New Orleans-flavored tuba section to several tunes. In
1973, Mahal branched out into movie soundtrack work with his
compositions for Sounder, and the following year he recorded his
most reggae-heavy outing, Mo' Roots. Mahal continued to record for
Columbia through 1976, when he switched to Warner Bros.; he
recorded three albums for that label, all in 1977 (including a
soundtrack for the film Brothers). Changing musical climates,
however, were decreasing interest in Mahal's work and he spent much
of the '80s off record, eventually moving to Hawaii to immerse
himself in another musical tradition. Mahal returned in 1987 with
Taj, an album issued by Gramavision that explored this new
interest; the following year, he inaugurated a string of
successful, well-received children's albums with Shake Sugaree. The
next few years brought a variety of side projects, including a
musical score for the lost Langston Hughes/Zora Neale Hurston play
Mule Bone that earned Mahal a Grammy nomination in 1991. The same
year marked Mahal's full-fledged return to regular recording and
touring, kicked off with the first of a series of well-received
albums on the Private Music label, Like Never Before. Follow-ups,
such as Dancing the Blues (1993) and Phantom Blues (1996), drifted
into more rock, pop, and R&B-flavored territory; in 1997, Mahal
won a Grammy for Señor Blues. Meanwhile, he undertook a number of
small-label side projects that constituted some of his most
ambitious forays into world music. Released in 1995, Mumtaz Mahal
teamed him with classical Indian musicians; 1998's Sacred Island
was recorded with his new Hula Blues Band as he explored Hawaiian
music in greater depth, and 1999's Kulanjan was a duo performance
with Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté. Maestro appeared in 2008,
boasting an array of all-star guests: Diabaté, Angélique Kidjo,
Ziggy Marley, Los Lobos, Jack Johnson, and Ben Harper. A holiday
album with the Blind Boys of Alabama, Talkin' Christmas, appeared
in time for the season in 2014. In 2017, Mahal teamed with Keb' Mo'
to spotlight the good-time side of the blues on TajMo. ~ Steve Huey