Just part of an extended musical family
Legendary blues guitarist Taj Mahal reflects humbly on his esteemed career
PREVIEW
TAJ MAHAL
Sunday, September 29
Jack Singer Concert Hall (CPA)
In 1968, when Taj Mahal came out with not one, but two, polished blues albums, his self-titled first disc and The Natch’l Blues, he hit the music scene with a profound impact.
Neither a traditionalist, a Chicago stylist, a folkie or a rock ’n’ roller, he had from the start a unique sound and a fresh outlook. His discography now totals 39 albums, and they all retain the essence of those first discs – a respect for the blues tradition, but with a distinctive eclectic personality that belongs to Mahal alone.
A self-taught musician, Mahal plays over 20 instruments, including the National Steel guitar and Dobro, and his voice has a range and versatility that goes from rough to ultra-smooth. He has a degree in agriculture, reads philosophy and is fluent in five languages. So far, his albums have earned seven Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards.
Born Henry Saint Claire Fredericks, the oldest of nine children, Mahal grew up in Springfield, Massachussetts, where his first influences were his gospel-singing mother and his Jamaican composer-arranger father, who was also an avid jazz fan. Mahal was also lucky to have teenage friends living down the block who came from North Carolina and Mississippi, and brought the songs and traditions of those places right to his door. While other musicians cite legendary blues players as influences, Taj learned directly from some of the elders in the genre.
"I was kind of ahead of the game in seeking out those traditional players like Mississippi John Hurt and Sleepy John Estes," he says. "I thought it was important to pay attention to them. In the ’60s when that music was surfacing into folk music, I didn’t take it for granted – I was interested in the original guys, in what they did and what they had, the stories of their lives along with the music. When I was 19 and 20, I was really learning a lot from those guys."
The inspiration for him was always "that raw connection with the sound." He would hear the new electric bluesmen that emerged in the ’50s, like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker, but he also listened to his dad’s radio with a short-wave band, where he heard music from London, Rio, Havana, Kingston, and Moscow. Looking back on it, he says, "I realize I was pretty lucky to have had musical talent and roots all around me. It gave me a broader musical palette to choose from right from the start."
Whether it's on the road or on his back porch at home in Hawaii, Mahal says he still enjoys playing music with like-minded people from different backgrounds. His approach to music is like his approach to cooking, a favourite pastime
"There's that basic beans and rice diet that people in all parts of the world have eaten for centuries, but it's the endless variations that make it interesting. I like to expand that knowledge and experiment with it. In the same way, blues players from all over the world bring their own cultural flavour to the blues."
In addition to his mastery of finger-picking country blues, bluegrass banjo, slide guitar, southern blues, soul and R and B, some of the international spices he's added to his musical creations include Caribbean, Cajun and Latin sounds. He’s collaborated with traditional South Asian musicians (N. Navikiran and V.M. Bhattit on Mumtaz Mahal in 1993), with veteran Hawaiian musicians (the Hula Blues Band on Sacred Island in 1997), and with a West African kora master (Toumani Diabate on Kulanjan in 1999).
"I see myself as part of an extended family, a global one," he says. "I might be in a Metro station in Paris and I hear a bunch of guys from Prague and I stop and listen, to check out how they’re playing. You can discover a lot just by living and keeping your ears open."
"I’ve lived a lot of years in this business. If there’s a message I’d like to send out, it’s for people to be more self-reliant in their thinking, to not see everything as separate, but to see the connections between us all as human beings. Music can help that happen." |
