Word: taj
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...voice over the loud speaker at Paul's Mall resonates clearly. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Taj Mahal." Mr. Taj Mahal? The name sounds pretentious enough. I can't help but wonder how many people in the world have been similarly introduced as Mr. Westminister Abbey. Ms. Parthenon, Dr. Eiffel Tower or Mrs. Coliseum. But as soon as the lights come on and the man struts on stage, all preconceived doubts about Mr. Taj Mahal are quickly erased. His presence is charged with a playfulness that know of no pretentions and his music oozes with the mmmmmmmmmmm...
...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...
Ford did not come like a god as Dwight Eisenhower did. There was little of the elegance that John Kennedy exuded in his triumphal march through Paris. There were none of those hilarious outrages which Lyndon Johnson relished, like yahooing in the Taj Mahal, passing out plastic busts of himself or, after viewing some of the best of Germany's modern art, asking if he couldn't pick up a dozen or so cut-rate paintings of beer- hall scenes for his Secret ServiceI agents. Nor was there the board-chairman bearing of Richard Nixon trailed...