[From the Ithaca Times; text by MacKenzie Ryan, photo by C. Taylor Crothers] One of the most ingenious, resourceful and inquisitive blues musician/composers ever to grace the American stage, Grammy-winner Taj Mahal and his “trio” — Kester Smith on drums and Bill Rich on bass — promise to have you “shaking your shaker, quaking your quaker” at the State Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 21.
Taj Mahal, born Henry St. Clair Fredericks, has spent the past 40 years picking, playing, singing and writing his way to the roots of African-American music. Childhood exposed him to a mixture of musical and cultural influences. His mother, native to South Carolina, sang gospel and his father, whose family came from the West Indian island of St. Kitts, played jazz piano.
Largely due to his exploratory nature, versatile playing skills and international influences, Mahal is not a musician the record industry can market in a square package. He played ska piano on his rendition of the Bob Marley track, “Slave Driver,” sang and picked Mississippi John Hurt’s melodic version of “Spike Driver Blues” with Gambian kora players, Bai and Dembo Konte, at the Great Hudson River Revival Folk Festival, and played Appalachian claw-hammer style banjo in the 2001 film, Song Catcher. The Rolling Stones invited him to play their Rock N’ Roll Circus; Broadway asked him to compose the score to Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes’ Mule Bone.
“I always say about my music: I made whole albums, not one song and then filled [the rest] up with some garbage.” The bluesman explains, “As a young person, coming up for me to really be able to develop my music, you had to pretty much go to a record company and fight through their idea of topical music.” This is part of the reason Mahal developed his own label, Kandu Records.
In 1965, Fredericks appeared on the Los Angeles blues scene after heading Taj Mahal and the Elecktras in his hometown city of Springfield, MA. Working at the jazz club, Ash Grove, afforded Mahal the chance to sit in and jam with visiting acts. There he met slide guitarist and fellow musicologist-in-training Ry Cooder.
The two formed the group Rising Sons in 1965. Columbia Records shelved their 1966 self-titled debut album until 1992. In The Unbroken Circle: Tradition and Innovation in the Music of Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, University of New Hampshire folklorist and American literature teacher Fred Metting later claimed the two musicians were responsible for stimulating the revival of American roots music by “tapping into a multifaceted American musical resource, a foundation stone in our musical structure,” the blues.
Mahal distinguished himself as a premier jazz/blues solo artist with Taj Mahal (1968), and then as a acoustic storyteller with the double album, Giant Steps/De Ole Folks at Home (1969). Marked by the 1974 release of Mo’ Roots, critics began to credit the man they call “Taj” with being the first to draw on the connection between Jamaican/Caribbean reggae and traditional American blues.
Taj traveled the world in order to learn the origins and relatives of blues. When questioned if any specific place he’s lived has changed his musicianship, Mahal responds, “I’ll tell you I certainly got a lot closer to, let’s say, Pacific Island music by living in Hawaii as much time as I did.” Indeed Mahal, among his myriad of side projects, formed his own hula band and released the album, Hula Blues, in 1998.
He cites the birthplace of roots rhythm music as an ever-present muse: “I’m always in Africa in my head. I think that it goes back to DNA. Everybody’s DNA goes back to Africa.” However, Mahal names the Caribbean islands and the tropics as places that inspire him the most. “I think that Caribbean music is extremely optimistic,” notes Mahal, who in the past frequently referred to reggae as Caribbean blues.
“And then if you collect all of that powerful positive African-American tradition, make room for Latin energy, make room for other cultures, it’s an exciting and intoxicating mix. Try to make something out of yourself in this life, not complain at somebody else that you didn’t reach your potential — that’s what the Caribbean music does. It puts you in touch with your roots with what’s really valuable.”
Taj Mahal will perform at the State Theatre this Thursday, Feb. 21 at 8pm. For tickets, 607-27-STATE.
