ALBUM: Anthology Volume 1
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$
This album is like a folk-blues version of Dr. John’s ‘Gumbo’ album.
Whereas Gumbo featured a lot of classics and standards of the various music styles surrounding New Orleans (zydeco, e.g.) Taj is doing the same thing with blues.
Both musicians are such well studied students of their music that each of those albums could be used as examples in a 101 class of their respective music interests.
This has Blind WIlie McTell’s “Statesboro Blues” and “Six Days on the Road” leading off side 1 and side 2.
A classically trained musician, Mahal can play multiple instruments. His father was an African/Caribbean singer. His mother, too, was musical. Taj said he realized over time that the music in his house wasn’t what was coming over the radio in the outside world. So he did what all good cooks do, he blended songs, layered on his influences — everything from hip-hop to jazz to old blues and country.
This isn’t on the album but if this obscure 1990s track from Mahal doesn’t get you up on the dance floor, gyrating like their is no tomorrow, then nothing will.:
Like Dr. John or maybe more than Dr. John, Mahal, sprinkles a few originals and they are good (see Corrina). Most selections, however,,. are old classics such as Statesboro Blues or ‘Fishing Blues.’
Wikipedia says: Mahal often incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific .
Early in hi s career — 1964 — the three-time Grammy Award winner played in a band with Ry Cooder called Rising Sons. The album was not released at the time but apparently was reissued in the 1990s on Legacy.