How old is taj mahal the musician

In Taj traveled to Spain to have a well-deserved rest and vacation in the home of the guitar. At the same time Taj continued to explore world music beginning with the aptly named World Music in Etta Baker With Taj Mahal came out in On this recording Taj Mahal took the blues to the mythical island of Zanzibar an East African island just off the coast of Tanzania.

He collaborated with legendary local acts such as Culture Musical Club and Bikidude. Maestro , released in was a landmark album where Taj Mahal explored some of his favorite musical traditions from various regions including the Mississippi Delta the Appalachian backwoods the African continent the Hawaiian Islands Europe and the Caribbean.

Even at the end of forty years in many ways my music is just getting started. It was recorded at various venues throughout the United States including Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York True Blues explores and celebrates the blues and follows its rich history from the Mississippi delta of the early s to the present day.

A self-taught musician Taj plays more than 20 instruments, including ukulele, steel and dobro guitars. Records, Brothers Warner Bros. Six Days Seven Nights Entertainer. Show all Hide all Show by Hide Show Actor 17 credits. Sage voice. Show all 8 episodes. TV Series Carl - T. Carl - T. Ellis Robinson voice. Radio Announcer voice. When We Were Colored Mr. Hide Show Composer 10 credits. Lucia Video. Hide Show Music department 5 credits. Hide Show Soundtrack 46 credits. Joe ". Pitiful", "Ooh Poo Pah Doo".

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The African-derived heritage of most of those forms allowed Mahal to explore his own ethnicity from a global perspective and to present the blues as part of a wider musical context. Yet while he dabbled in many different genres, he never strayed too far from his laid-back country blues foundation. Blues purists naturally didn't have much use for Mahal 's music, and according to some of his other detractors, his multi-ethnic fusions sometimes came off as indulgent, or overly self-conscious and academic.

Still, Mahal 's concept was vindicated in the '90s, when a cadre of young bluesmen began to follow his lead -- both acoustic revivalists Keb' Mo' , Guy Davis and eclectic bohemians Corey Harris , Alvin Youngblood Hart.

Taj Mahal was born Henry St. Clair Fredericks in New York on May 17, After graduating, Mahal moved to Los Angeles in and, after making his name on the local folk-blues scene, formed the Rising Sons with guitarist Ry Cooder.

The group signed to Columbia and released one single, but the label didn't quite know what to make of their forward-looking blend of Americana, which anticipated a number of roots rock fusions that would take shape in the next few years; as such, the album they recorded sat on the shelves, unreleased until Frustrated, Mahal left the group and wound up staying with Columbia as a solo artist.

His self-titled debut was released in early and its stripped-down approach to vintage blues sounds made it unlike virtually anything else on the blues scene at the time. It came to be regarded as a classic of the '60s blues revival, as did its follow-up, Natch'l Blues.

The half-electric, half-acoustic double-LP set Giant Step followed in , and taken together, those three records built Mahal 's reputation as an authentic yet unique modern-day bluesman, gaining wide exposure and leading to collaborations or tours with a wide variety of prominent rockers and bluesmen.

During the early '70s, Mahal 's musical adventurousness began to take hold; 's Happy Just to Be Like I Am heralded his fascination with Caribbean rhythms, and the following year's double-live set, The Real Thing , added a New Orleans-flavored tuba section to several tunes.