{"id":938874,"date":"2026-05-05T07:54:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/938874\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T07:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:54:24","slug":"taj-mahal-wherever-the-rolling-stones-went-it-was-happening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/938874\/","title":{"rendered":"Taj Mahal: \u2018Wherever the Rolling Stones went, it was happening\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In 1968, Taj Mahal<\/a> was onstage at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles when he looked out and realised he was performing to a who\u2019s who of British rock music. \u201cThree of the Stones were dancing, along with three of The Animals,\u201d he remembers. \u201cEric Clapton was in the back of the room. There was a current going back and forth.\u201d <\/p>\n

The young stars of the British Invasion all borrowed heavily from the blues, and were intoxicated by Mahal\u2019s thrillingly electrified version of American roots music. In turn, the then 26-year-old had grown up in the States tuning in to UK radio shows. After his set, he approached Mick Jagger<\/a> and asked him to let him know if there was ever an opportunity for his band to play in England. <\/p>\n

\u201cThree months later, they sent us eight first class round-trip tickets,\u201d remembers Mahal. \u201cWe went over and they treated us absolutely the best we\u2019d ever been treated by anybody.\u201d The Rolling Stones<\/a> invited him to perform at their Rock and Roll Circus, a star-studded concert also featuring John Lennon and The Who. \u201cIt was wonderful,\u201d recalls Mahal. \u201cWe were travelling with the Stones and wherever they went, it was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost six decades later, Mahal, now 83, is backstage in Los Angeles again, preparing for a show at the grand Art Deco venue The Wiltern. In the intervening years, the seasoned bluesman has become a Grammy winner five times over and released more than 40 records, and he\u2019s not slowing down yet. His breezy, upbeat new album, Time, has him collaborating with his old friend Bob Marley\u2019s son Ziggy and recording a previously unheard Bill Withers tune.<\/p>\n

We meet a couple of hours before showtime. Mahal is dressed in a black baseball jacket and dark circular shades, with a red neckerchief tied under his snowy white beard. It appears he\u2019s lost none of his enthusiasm for life on the road as he happily holds court from his leather armchair, speaking in a low, resonant drawl. \u201cIt\u2019s all about the music,\u201d he says nonchalantly. \u201cI love the people, and like to see them enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TajTaj Mahal, seen performing in Los Angeles in 2022, released both his first two albums, \u2018Taj Mahal\u2019 and \u2018The Natch\u2019l Blues\u2019, in 1968 (Getty)<\/p>\n

Mahal has been immersed in music his whole life. His father, Henry St Claire Fredericks Sr, was a composer and arranger who worked with Ella Fitzgerald<\/a> at a time when she was regularly performing at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. She called him \u201cthe genius\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because he was!\u201d says Mahal. \u201cHe was an all-around musician, a classically trained Caribbean piano player who played jazz, jump blues and swing.\u201d Yet his father gave up his career after he married Mahal\u2019s mother, having met at one of Fitzgerald\u2019s Savoy shows: \u201cHe wanted to have a big family, and he wasn\u2019t going to be able to do that on a musician\u2019s salary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

I would have played music on my back porch on the farm, or wherever<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

After the family moved north to Springfield, Massachusetts, his mother sang in a gospel choir and Mahal used a shortwave crystal radio to tune into music from all around the world. Still, by the time he was a teenager, he was working on a dairy farm; he thought music might just be something he did between milking cows and growing corn. <\/p>\n

\u201cI knew from ancient tradition that music always accompanies whatever it is that we did,\u201d he says. \u201cI would have played it on my back porch on the farm, or wherever, but I never had enough collateral to buy a farm, so music came and got me! I came out to California, hooked up with Ry Cooder<\/a>, and things started rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry Jr adopted his monumental stage name at the start of the 1960s, inspired by dreams he had about Mahatma Gandhi\u2019s nonviolent resistance campaigns in India. In 1964, he heard about Cooder\u2019s talent as a guitar player and moved to Santa Monica to meet him. They formed a band, Rising Sons, and played shows at LA folk club the Ash Grove, famed for hosting the likes of Big Mama Thornton, Howlin\u2019 Wolf and Muddy Waters. <\/p>\n

\"TajTaj Mahal, pictured with Rage Against The Machine\u2019s Tom Morello at Pete Seeger\u2019s 90th birthday celebration, says he almost became a farmer: \u2018Music came and got me!\u2019 (Getty)<\/p>\n

After Rising Sons split in 1966, Mahal released both his first two solo albums in 1968: his self-titled debut and follow-up The Natch\u2019l Blues, which included his own compositions such as \u201cShe Caught The Katy (And Left Me a Mule to Ride)\u201d. The song later found a wider audience when avowed fan John Belushi covered it as the theme to the 1980 comedy-musical The Blues Brothers. \u201cAll I wanted to do was eventually be able to write good tunes,\u201d says Mahal, with a modest grin. \u201cI\u2019ve had some success with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early 1970s, Mahal began to incorporate more Caribbean sounds into his music on records such as 1974\u2019s reggae-inspired Mo\u2019 Roots, which featured Wailers bassist Aston \u201cFamily Man\u201d Barrett. During the recording, he got to know Bob Marley, who was working on his own album Natty Dread. \u201cHe came to my house and we were trying to create something together,\u201d he remembers. \u201cBut we never got around to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Time, he and Marley\u2019s son Ziggy duet on the Natty Dread track \u201cTalkin\u2019 Blues\u201d, a song Mahal reveals he helped inspire. \u201c\u2018Talkin\u2019 Blues\u2019 is about me!\u201d he says. \u201cBob sings: \u2018I\u2019ve been down on the rock so long\/ I seem to wear a permanent screw\u2019. Who came up with that? \u2018I had the blues, so bad\/ One time it put my face\/ In a permanent frown\u2019 [from Mahal\u2019s \u2018Cakewalk into Town\u2019]. I appreciated that! Bob was a competitive person, but we always had a good rapport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TajTaj Mahal on recording an unheard Bill Withers song: \u2018Every time he did something, it sounded like him, but it sounded new\u2019 (Mike Coeyman)<\/p>\n

Before long, he\u2019ll be on stage wiggling, growling and kissing the air as he delights an exuberant audience with one of the new album\u2019s highlights, his version of \u201cWild About My Lovin\u2019\u201d, a song first recorded a century ago. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken an old blues tune and put some Caribbean hot sauce on it,\u201d he beams. \u201cIt\u2019s an oldie, but a goodie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWild About My Lovin\u2019\u201d is far from the first time Mahal has taken a nearly forgotten blues tune and used his particular brand of spice to revive it. He\u2019s been a preservationist and an interpreter longer than he\u2019s been a songwriter. His first album was all reinvented covers, including a famous arrangement of Blind Willie McTell\u2019s \u201cStatesboro Blues\u201d with slide guitar by Jesse Ed Davis that inspired the Allman Brothers Band to record a similar version. <\/p>\n

\n

You will never chew all the flavour out of the blues<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On Time, he sprinkles his magic on the title track, based on a Bill Withers demo the soul singer wrote but never released before his death in 2020. Withers was a major star in the 1970s, but by the mid-Eighties he had largely stopped recording \u2013 in part due to the musician\u2019s conflict with record company executives. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s an example of the industry being so ignorant, with their heads up their keisters,\u201d says Mahal. \u201cHe was a complete creative, and they were telling him he had to use synthesisers and speed up his music! Bill was somebody I really liked, and if they had not gotten in his way, think how much more music you would be able to hear. Every time he did something, it sounded like him, but it sounded new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TajTaj Mahal with the Phantom Blues Band during the recording of their new album \u2018Time\u2019 (Mike Coeyman)<\/p>\n

Mahal has a nomadic musical spirit, one which has seen him draw inspiration from everywhere from Mali to India. All of those global influences filtered into the music he made with the Phantom Blues Band, a backing group built around drummer Tony Braunagel, bassist Larry Fulcher and guitarist Johnny Lee Schell. Their collaborations helped Mahal win back-to-back Grammys in the late 1990s and produced some of his best-loved songs, including \u201cLovin\u2019 In My Baby\u2019s Eyes\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mahal wrote that song while caring for one of his daughters, Deva. \u201cI think she must have been about three,\u201d he recalls. \u201cShe was on the veranda, looking up at me. I looked at her, and energy went back and forth. We were communicating. She was smiling. That stuck in my head: \u2018Loving in my baby\u2019s eyes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TajTaj Mahal accepting the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album for \u2018Swingin\u2019 Live at The Church in Tulsa\u2019 in 2025, flanked by his daughters Zoe Moon and Deva Mahal (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

He reunites with the Phantom Blues Band again on Time, a record that demonstrates \u2013 much like tonight\u2019s live show \u2013 the ease with which Mahal can slip between country-fried banjo hoedowns, New Orleans-style funk and sun-kissed reggae. <\/p>\n

His first love, however, remains the blues. He closes Time with a playful cover of \u201cRowdy Blues\u201d, one of only two songs known to have survived from the sole 1929 recording session by the enigmatic Delta bluesman Kid Bailey. Even after all these years, Mahal says, there are still plenty of older songs worth bringing to a new audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that \u2018Rowdy Blues\u2019, and when we play it we have a good time,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is not dead music! You will never chew all the flavour out of the blues. No way. Jazz will give you back your mind, reggae will give you back your body, but the blues? The blues will give you back your soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band\u2019s \u2018Time\u2019 is out now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-938874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116520895910500409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}