Word: taj
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...things. But you knew it was painful because you could feel the vibes from so many people who had been bent and broken and twisted and done in under that kind of structure. They wanted to get rid of the traces of any memories of slavery times." Yet Taj reveals those memories in "Slave Driver," a song written by Bob Marley on Mo Roots...
...Taj Mahal is non-stop energy. When he sings, his body is constantly in motion: his head bobs from side to side: his eyebrows leap up and down; his hips grind rhythmically; his foot stomps and his facial expressions never stop changing. If he's not accompanying himself with his Mississippi National steel-bodied acoustic guitar, then he'll play the piano or banjo or mandolin of kalimba or maracas or Spirit of '76 Fife. His raspy voice sometimes turns lyrics into a stammer reminiscent of Otis Redding. At other times, words are replaced altogether by suggestive mumbles...
...Taj's music, which incorporates what he calls "recycled" blues lines, celebrates earthy sensuality and living close to the land. Above all, he cherishes his ancestry and origins. From his first albun, Taj Mahal, to his latest, MoRoots. Taj's music, which he calls "the real music--a song of the human spirit, of the universal spirit," is a reflection of personal discovery and transition. Having started out in folk music. Taj's sound has changed radically within the past ten years and has matured. Whether he plays with four tubas (The Real Thing), or adapts a Carole King song...
Offstage, Taj exudes the same warmth he generates when he performs. When I called him up from the lobby of the Hotel Lenox last week to confirm his room number, he good-naturedly answered the phone. "Arby's Chicken Palace!" As I entered his suite, he ruffled his bedspread into place, greeted me with a grin and handshake, lit some incense, sat down in a rocking chair while toying with a soccer ball, and began to talk and sometimes ramble, his verbiage interlaced with words like "cosmos" and "vibes...
...Taj has made a career out of understanding his origins. The eldest of nine children, Taj (born Henry Fredericksin New York City in 1943) lived first in the Jamaican ghetto of Brooklyn but mostly grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father, a noted jazz composer and arranger of West Indian descent, introduced his son to the likes of Meade Lux Lewis. Cow Cow Davenport and Leadbelly at an early, age. His appetite whetted. Taj sought out the early master Blues artists such as Willie Brown, Charlie Patton and Kid Bailey. His pursuit of the music of Southern country blues...