Taj Mahal Infuses Intimate Blues Evening with World Music

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

February 4, 2008

Describing legendary musician Taj Mahal in a single word or phrase is impossible. This two-time Grammy-winner, vocalist, composer, and world-class music virtuoso has been playing his own distinctive brand of music -- variously described as Afro-Caribbean blues, folk-world-blues, hula blues, folk-funk, and a host of other hyphenations -- for more than 40 years. Self-taught, Mahal plays more than 20 instruments including National Steel and Dobro guitars, and sings with a remarkable voice ranging from gruff and gravelly to smooth and sultry.

After more than a decade of larger ensemble work, Mahal wanted to do more guitar playing with a smaller group. The Taj Mahal Trio -- just Mahal on guitar, piano, and banjo, Bill Rich on bass, and Kester Smith on drums -- “allows the music between voice and guitar to happen with the smallest amount of accompaniment,” he says. “That leaves a lot of space to be filled. The guitar is not submerged but right up front in the music. It’s a challenging place to play.”

With The Trio, Taj Mahal brings the blues to an intimate concert at The Paramount Theater on Saturday, February 16 at 8 pm.

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A combination of Caribbean, Hawaiian, African, Latin, and Cuban sounds and rhythms -- mixed with folk, jazz, zydeco, gospel, rock, pop, soul, and R&B; layered on top of a solid country blues foundation -- Taj Mahal’s music springs from an abiding interest in discovery and tracing American musical forms back to their roots.

Following this passion, Mahal has spent time in the Caribbean, West Africa, Hawaii, Europe, the South Pacific, Australia, South America, and all over the continental U.S., and his music reflects this global perspective. “I didn’t want to fall into the trap of complacency,” Mahal states. “I wanted to keep pushing the musical ideas I had about jazz, music from Africa and the Caribbean. I wanted to explore the connections between different kinds of music.”

Born Henry St. Claire Fredericks in Harlem on May 17, 1942, Mahal grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. Both his Caribbean jazz pianist/composer/arranger father and South Carolinian gospel-singing schoolteacher mother exposed him to various musical traditions and encouraged him to be proud of his roots.

While classical piano lessons weren’t a fit for his “own concept of how [he] wanted to play,” he ultimately learned to play the piano as well as the clarinet, trombone, and harmonica. He discovered his stepfather’s guitar in his early teens and became serious about it when expert Piedmont-style guitarist Lynnwood Perry moved in next door.

While attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the early 1960s, the musician transformed himself into Taj Mahal, an idea that came to him in a dream. He began playing with the popular U. Mass. party band The Elektras, then left Massachusetts in 1964 for the blues-heavy L.A. club scene. There he formed The Rising Sons with guitarist Ry Cooder, which opened for Otis Redding, Sam the Sham, The Temptations, and Martha and the Vandellas.

He tapped his early experiences for three hugely influential records of the 60s blues revival: Taj Mahal (1967), The Natch’l Blues (1968), and Giant Step/De Old Folks at Home (1969); albums showing signs of the musical exploration that would be his hallmark over the years to come.

Mahal carved out his own musical niche with a string of adventurous recordings in the 1970s, including the Caribbean-flavored Happy to Be Just Like I Am (1971), Recycling the Blues and Other Related Stuff (1972), the Grammy-nominated soundtrack to the movie Sounder (1973), the reggae-infused Mo’ Roots (1974), Music Fuh Ya’ (Music Para Tu) (1977), and Evolution (The Most Recent) (1978).

Relentless touring in the 1980s slowed his recorded output, but Mahal returned to a full recording and performance schedule in the1990s with the rock, pop, and R&B-flavored territory of commercial and critical successes Dancing the Blues (1993), Phantom Blues (1996), and the Grammy Award-winning Señor Blues (1997).

At the same time, Mahal continued to explore world music, beginning with the aptly named World Music in 1993. He has played in subsequent collaborations with Indian classical musicians, Hawaii’s The Hula Blues, and Malian kora player Toumani Diabate.

Since 2000, Mahal has released a second Grammy-winning album, Shoutin’ in Key (2000), and recorded a second album with The Hula Blues (2003’s lush Hanapepe Dream). The Trio has recorded albums Live Catch (2004) and Mkutano (2005). In 2006, Mahal appeared as a guest musician on the Ladysmith Black Mambazo album Long Walk to Freedom, released live DVD Taj Mahal & The Phantom Blues Band in St. Lucia, and was designated the “official Blues Artist" of Massachusetts.

More collaborations are on the way -- a second edition of the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus, more work with African musicians, and a desire to do more tuba band music "sooner rather than later." Whoever Mahal works with and whatever sounds he puts his hand to in the coming years, you can bet that the blues will play a big part. “You got that tone together,” he says, “everything else is flavor.”

Crediting much of his success to the freedom that independent record companies have given him later in his career, Mahal says “there is a lot of music that people do not get to hear, and it’s unfortunate. It’s because of marketing and the fact that somebody [at the record company] says you won’t like this. But the people who come hear me get to hear everything I know about.”

Seats are still available for Taj Mahal’s performance on Saturday, February 16. Tickets are $33.50, $36.50, $39.50, and $44.50. Half-price student rush tickets and group discounts are offered.

Tickets are available online or through The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333.

To learn more about Taj Mahal, please visit www.tajblues.com.