Taj Mahal

I admit it. I have real trouble seeing Taj Mahal as an 81-year-old. He’s earned the moniker of a legacy artist almost from the time he first began performing in 1964. I was a student at Tufts University at the time. He had just graduated from the University of Massachusetts

Taj Mahal at The Egg

“We’re all here,” bluesman Taj Mahal recently told the audience at Wolf Trap, “because we love music.”

Joan Baez and Taj Mahal star at Acoustic-4-a-Cure Fillmore show

Henry St. Clair Fredericks Jr. was born on the heels of The Harlem Renaissance in Upper Manhattan. The son of an Afro-Caribbean jazz composer and professional pianist his house was always full of music and song. His father died in a traumatic construction accident when Fredericks was just 11 years old.

There is a moment in The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda transforms into a being of incredible, transcendent power. Something very similar happened when the Taj Mahal Quartet picked up their instruments and started to play at The Birchmere recently.

It's not his eclecticism which may be unparalleled in blues that defines Taj Mahal for me. And It's not his acumen on stringed instruments ranging from National steel guitar to banjo to mandolin, but rather it's his attitude that comes across in his voice and on every instrument he plays.