| November 26th, 2004 02:52 PM |
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| Monkey Woman |
Taj Mahal remembers '60s rock'n' roll circus
By Jim Harrington - Oakland Tribune
Friday, November 26, 2004 - FEW artists move as freely between musical genres as Taj Mahal.
He's an acclaimed acoustic blues guitarist and vocalist who has recorded reggae music, chummed around with Mick Jagger, opened for Otis Redding, performed with members of the Grateful Dead and explored gospel, folk and Caribbean music, too.
Beginning Tuesday, Mahal will perform six nights at Yoshi's at Jack London Square. Just what he'll play at the famed Oakland nightspot is anybody's guess.
The options literally span the globe. At 62, the Berkeley resident is still riding high on a world-music roller coaster, having drawn acclaim over the last decade for works including "Mumtaz Mahal," which featured classical Indian musicians, and "Sacred Island," an exploration of Hawaiian music.
The artist credits his eclectic musical tastes to his upbringing in Springfield, Mass., a wildly diverse city at a time when a young boy could experience several cultures simply by walking down the street.
Mahal, then known as Henry St. Clair Fredericks, was quick to notice that all these folks from disparate parts of the world were connected through music.
"I saw music as the life blood of all people and the language that was more common than anything else that we have," he said during a recent phone conversation from home.
Young Henry didn't even have to step outside his front door to get a proper musical education.
"I come by it legitimately through the blending of the different Afro families that I come out of," he says. "My mother is an African-American from South Carolina with some Native American roots. My father is from the West Indies."
His dad was also a talented jazz pianist and composer who had a great record collection and, perhaps most significantly, knew others that had equally large libraries.
"My parents would have record parties and people would bring their record collections," he says. "I grew up with that (environment); I didn't find that because I went to college and read a treatise on folk music. ... Everybody wants to say 'Isn't he a lawyer? Didn't he study law at MIT or Harvard?' No, man, I studied animal husbandry. I was interested in farming and music."
Luckily for listeners, music won out over farming.
After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, the young musician changed his name and moved out to Los Angeles in the mid-'60s, where he hooked up with guitarist Ry Cooder to form the roots-act Rising Sons.
His time as a Son was short lived; Mahal was soon leading his own blues band. In 1968, Mahal released his self-titled debut on Columbia Records, a stripped-down old-timey effort vastly different from the electrified Chicago-style sound that still rules blues to this day.
"Taj Mahal" would eventually be considered a cornerstone of the'60s blues revival. But the man behind it was still trying to build a fan base, playing small clubs for relatively small dollars.
Fortunately, some of the right people happened to be in the crowd one night at a show in Hollywood.
"Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Keith Richards and Brian Jones are all out there in the audience dancing with women," Mahal says. "Here we are making a couple of hundred dollars per week and here are all these (superstars) coming to get entertained by us."
Jagger was impressed with what he saw and heard onstage, and invited Mahal over for a conversation after the show.
It was opportunity knocking and Mahal answered the door.
"I just told Mick flat out, 'We've got a snowball's chance in hell here in the United States to make it playing this music because they don't seem to be responding to it the way they are responding to what you are doing with it,'" said Mahal. "I said, 'Hey man, if there is anything that we can ever do to help you out on any kind of project or whatever, give us a call.'
"Three months later, the tickets came in the mail for the four guys in the band, the two (roadies) and the two guys from management."
Just like that, Mahal and his gang of bluesmen were off to London to appear alongside The Who, Jethro Tull, Yoko Ono and, of course, Lovely Luna and the Fire Eater at the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.
Also on the bill was the super-group to end all super-groups: The Dirty Mac, which featured Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Richards on (believe it or not) bass, Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums and John Lennon on vocals and rhythm guitar.
It was pretty intimidating company for a young blues player. But Mahal went out there and delivered the goods with a fine version of "Ain't That a Lot of Love" and proved himself worthy of superstar status, which would be further cemented by the late-'60s albums "Giant Step" and "The Natch'l Blues."
Unfortunately, it looked like the world would never get the chance to see Taj stand tall next to Clapton and Jagger. Originally conceived as a BBC-TV special, the "Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" never aired.
But there's a happy ending to the story.
"Rock and Roll Circus," first released on video in 1995, recently was gussied up into a DVD packed with extras. That means that curious folks can see and hear Mahal perform "Ain't That a Lot of Love" as well as bonus tracks "Checkin' Up on My Baby," "Corina" and "Leavin' Truck," which were recorded that day but not included in the original program.
Mahal couldn't be more thrilled that the "Circus" has at long last come to town in fine fashion.
"It's one of the highlights of my life to be a part of that show, considering all the different artists here in the United States that could have been asked to be there."
http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82~1804~2559983,00.html# |
| November 27th, 2004 06:34 PM |
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| gypsy |
Thank you, MonkeyWoman! |
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