Taj Mahal (musician)

• Born: May 17, 1942
• Place of Birth: Harlem, New York

Singer, musician, and actor

Throughout his long career, Taj Mahal worked to generate interest in the blues by exploring the genre’s roots in traditional African American music. He also exposed audiences to African, Caribbean, and Hawaiian musical forms.

Early Life

Taj Mahal was born Henry St. Clair Fredericks, Jr., in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, the eldest of nine children. His father, a West Indian from St. Kitts, was a pianist and jazz arranger who worked for artists such as Ella Fitzgerald. His mother, Mildred Shields Fredericks, was a teacher and gospel singer from South Carolina. Shortly after Taj Mahal’s birth, the family moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. When he was twelve, Taj Mahal saw his father die in a tractor accident. His mother later married Hughan Williams, a Jamaican.

As a teenager, Taj Mahal worked on dairy and tobacco farms and discovered Mississippi Delta blues from neighbors who were originally from the South. He listened to recordings by blues musicians such as Jimmy Reed and Howlin’ Wolf, folk singers such as Woody Guthrie, and early rock-and-roll artists such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. His stepfather had a guitar, and Taj Mahal learned to play it with help from neighbor Lynwood Perry, a North Carolinian.

At the University of Massachusetts, Mahal formed a rhythm-and-blues group, Taj Mahal and the Elektras, which played at campus parties and coffeehouses. His discovery of the African roots of this music led to a lifelong fascination with ethnomusicology. He soon taught himself to play the piano, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, harmonica, and flute. After graduating in 1964 with a degree in agriculture, he moved to Los Angeles and joined the blues group the Rising Sons, which included noted guitarist Ry Cooder. The band broke up in 1966 after releasing one single, but an album they recorded was later released in 1992.

Life’s Work

Taj Mahal’s first album, Taj Mahal (1968), with Cooder on guitar, established the musician as a talented performer of traditional blues on the electric guitar. Natch’l Blues (1968) featured four songs written by Taj Mahal and continued to explore different blues styles. Giant Step (1969) combined electric and acoustic blues. Taj Mahal’s explorations of traditional African American music expanded during the 1970s. He introduced Caribbean rhythms in Happy to Be Just Like I Am (1971) and gospel-influenced music by the Pointer Sisters in Recycling the Blues (1972).

Taj Mahal composed the score for Sounder (1972; based on the 1969 novel of the same name by William H. Armstrong) and played a supporting role in the film, set in a rural Black community during the Great Depression. He repeated his role in Sounder, Part Two (1976) and also acted in such films as Once Upon a Time…When We Were Colored (1995) and Songcatcher (2000). Taj Mahal also composed scores for other films, including Brothers (1977), inspired by the relationship between Black Panther Party activist Angela Davis and prisoner George Jackson. Taj Mahal played the dobro guitar on the sound track for The Hot Spot (1990), whose other contributors include Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker. In 1991, he composed music for the Broadway production of Mule Bone, based on an unfinished play by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

Taj Mahal moved to Kauai, Hawaii, during the 1980s with his second wife, Inshirah, with whom he had seven children. He recorded Shake Sugaree (1988), an album of traditional folk songs meant to introduce children to the music of different cultures. He explored his West Indian and African roots in World Music (1993) before returning to blues and rock with Dancing the Blues (1993), on which blues legend Etta James joined Taj Mahal for the rhythm-and-blues classic “Mockingbird.” In concerts and on recordings, he also collaborated over the years with musical luminaries such as Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, B. B. King, Bob Marley, the Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, and the Rolling Stones.

Taj Mahal won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album for Señor Blues (1997), a mixture of new songs and others reflecting the musician’s roots, including songs by Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, and Hank Williams. As he did throughout his career, Taj Mahal took familiar songs and reinterpreted them in his style.

With Sacred Island (1998) and the Hula Blues Band, which Taj Mahal founded in 1981, he added Hawaiian music to his repertoire. He followed with Kulanjan (1999), a collaboration with Malian musician Toumani Diabate. Taj Mahal won his second Grammy for the live album Shoutin’ in Key (2000). Hanapepe Dreams (2003) blends blues with Caribbean and Hawaiian influences. Mkutano (2005) explores the African musical form taarbu in collaboration with the Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar. Maestro: Celebrating 40 Years (2008) looks back at Taj Mahal’s career with guests Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Angelique Kidjo, Ziggy Marley, and Los Lobos. It was also nominated for a Grammy.

Active in many charitable causes, Taj Mahal organized the annual Taj Mahal Fishin’ Blues Tournament in Costa Rica to benefit the Music Maker Foundation, which supports unsung blues pioneers. In 2004, he recorded an album with one of these pioneers, ninety-one-year-old Piedmont blues guitarist Etta Baker.

In the twenty-first century, Taj Mahal conducted online workshops to explain the origins of Delta, Chicago, and West Texas blues styles. He invested much time and energy in musical education and considered his frequent live performances an extension of his educational aims. He also continued to record, winning his third Grammy for the album TajMo (2017), a collaboration with fellow contemporary blues artist Keb' Mo'. Taj Mahal won another Grammy in 2023 for Best Traditional Blues Album for his recording Get On Board (2022), on which he collaborated again with guitarist Ry Cooder.

In 2023, Taj Mahal released Savoy, his first jazz and pop album. Savoy was heavily praised by both fans and critics. The artist followed Savoy with his 2024 album Swingin' Live at the Church in Tulsa.

Significance

Taj Mahal created distinctive interpretations of blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, folk, jazz, pop, rock and roll, calypso, reggae, and children’s songs not only because of his interest in ethnomusicology but also out of his artistic restlessness. His diverse interests and influences made him a unique and influential artist in his own right. He came to be regarded as an important icon of American and world music, both helping to preserve traditional styles and forging new sounds. Among many other honors and recognitions, in 2014 he was presented with a lifetime achievement award from the Americana Music Association.

Bibliography

Browne, David. "Blues Tradition Feels Viscerally Alive on Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder's 'Get On Board.'" Rolling Stone, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/taj-mahal-and-ry-cooder-get-on-board-1333101/. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Metting, Fred. The Unbroken Circle: Tradition and Innovation in the Music of Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001.

Sacksteder, John. "Taj Mahal - Savoy | Album Review." Blues Blast Magazine, 13 May 2023, www.bluesblastmagazine.com/taj-mahal-savoy-album-review/#. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Taj Mahal. “Taj Mahal.” Interview by Brett J. Bonner. Living Blues 31 (March/April 2000): 30-41.

Taj Mahal and Stephen Foehr. Taj Mahal: Autobiography of a Bluesman. London: Sanctuary, 2001.

Valencia, Albert. “Taj Mahal.” In Popular Musicians, edited by Steve Hochman. Vol. 4. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 1999.