As rock musicians get older, you have to wonder how much they're really into it anymore. So many of them seem to be surviving thanks to the "living legends" syndrome: We must go see these acts simply because of who they are. This has undoubtedly helped fill seats, even as the legends' performances become more scattershot. Look, the Pope's fading away, but he's still the Pope. His eminence is still self-evident. Legendary rockers are getting old, too, but can't we at least expect a decent show?
Contrast those guys with Taj Mahal. The darling of country-blues aficionados for decades, this man has always worked for his pay. That's no plea for sympathy; he wouldn't have it any other way. A contemporary of rock's classical elite—his performance nearly upstaged the Rolling Stones in their 1968 documentary, Rock and Roll Circus—Taj's legacy isn't that he stayed the course, but that he strayed from it. Constantly.
"It's pretty separate from the music industry," he says, speaking from a hotel in North Carolina. "I'm not being cheeky when I say that I want positive vibes for the greatest good. I'm not waiting for [the recording industry] to give me anything. I'm out there doing what I got to do."
What he's been doing is serving as a musical beacon in a world of increasingly homogenized tastes. The "roots" tag is often applied to Taj's work, which, like most categorizations, is far too simple and shortsighted. He does play classics, both in the studio and live, but not in the geezer-rock sense. His classics are old blues and country songs by musicians long dead and rarely heard. Sleepy John Estes, Blind Willie McTell, Yank Rachell; if people know of these men at all, it's most likely because Taj helped popularize their songs.
Other classics in his repertoire go back even further, ranging from old European and American folk songs to traditional West African griot music, often rearranged to accommodate Taj's unforgettable vocal delivery. "Go into Appalachia and you'll hear songs with a 400- or 500-year tradition," he says. "Who knows where they're derived from? This is valid—no, incredible American information that is under the radar."
Taj sees himself as a messenger of these traditions, and by extension, a catalyst for positive change. In his own words, his purpose is "to jump-start people to be proactive in their own lives."
While some may have had to go to school to learn these divergent musical styles, Taj simply gathered from what he learned growing up. He was born Henry St. Claire Fredericks on May 17, 1942, in New York City. His mother, a Baptist from South Carolina, schooled him in gospel.
"Before our feet hit the floor Sunday morning," Taj remembers, "my mom was up with the music."
His father, a secular jazz pianist from the Caribbean, was so tied to his ancestry that, in the '40s, he almost moved the family to Africa, "so [we] weren't overwhelmed by the lack of information and concern in this country about our origins," Taj says.
But instead of Africa, the family moved to the surprisingly ethnically diverse climes of Springfield, Massachusetts, where Taj eventually played in college bands. Growing up in such a progressive environment, he says, gave him an education few blacks then could realize. "When the '60s came along, I was surprised that African-Americans didn't have that consciousness about where we were from," he says.
Looking at those early years, it's easy to see an unconventional pattern that Taj set and followed the remainder of his life. His first album was with the Rising Sons, a rock group in which he was the only black musician—remember, this was 1964. Their sound, along the lines of country-era Byrds, was so far ahead of its time that it was considered a commercial liability. Consequently, their first and only record was not released until the early '90s, despite featuring such soon-to-be legends as Taj and fellow system-bucker Ry Cooder.
When Taj went solo, he unleashed his stripped-down approach to the blues, beginning a long odyssey through acoustic blues (Natch'l Blues, '68), reggae (Happy Just to Be Like I Am, '71), and later, a mix of blues, rock, calypso, salsa, country ... you get the idea (Senor Blues, '97 Grammy-winner ). Taj, who lived in Hawaii for more than a decade, even delved into the 50th state's exotic stylings (Sacred Island, '98‚ and Hanapepe Dream, '03).
"People ask me, 'What is it about your music?'‚ and I tell them: 'It makes people think!'" He chuckles but is completely earnest about his self-ascribed role. "A lot of times, there are three or four generations of fans coming to our shows. Kids who grew up listening to my children's albums [ie. Shake Sugaree] are now 25 or 26, having kids of their own."
The key, he says, is that he never played down to his audience. Throughout our conversation, he repeatedly emphasizes the fans' importance; after all, they're his support, and not the record industry, he proudly reiterates.
"This is really a grassroots champion kind of thing," he says warmly, in his inimitable, gravelly voice. "This is a work-in-progress. All I know is that people enjoy it, and that's all I have to go by."