This Saturday night, blues master Taj Mahal will bring his wide-ranging talents to Spaulding Auditorium, promising a performance as varied and exciting as his professional experiences and accomplishments. But while Mahal is sure to present a diversity of musical styles, expect his music to stay close to the heart of his inspiration: the blues.
Taj Mahal has been bringing the blues to many different audiences in many different forms for over thirty years. He was born in Massachusetts to a musical family, a fertile environment for a young musician.
Encouraged by his father, a West African jazz arranger and performer, and his gospel-singing mother, Mahal was free to experiment with and finally master more than a dozen instruments, including the banjo, guitar, piano, harmonica, and mandolin.
Despite his mother's emphasis on learning classical music, Mahal found himself drawn to more traditional African-American styles like boogie-woogie and, eventually, the blues. From this impressive blend of musical foundations, Mahal went on to sample a vast range of musical dialects, such as reggae, country, rock, gospel, jazz, and funk. But Mahal never strays far from his blues roots. Jon Pareles of the New York Times writes, "Taj Mahal has lived with the tradition for so long he has stopped worrying about staying close to his sources."
Taj Mahal's career accomplishments are even more varied than his musical tastes. He began perfoming in 1965 with The Rising Sons, a band he founded with another legendary blues figure, guitarist Ry Cooder.Since then, his recordings have received a great deal of acclaim. "Giant Step" and "The Natch'l Blues" were enormously successful, and he received a Grammy nomination for "Dancing the Blues." Mahal's talents have even taken him to film and screen work, composing scores for Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Houston's play "Mule Bone," George Lucas' animated series, "The Ewoks," and "Br'er Rabbit," a musical and video collaboration with Danny Glover. Despite these accomplishments, Taj Mahal has still found time to perform his music around the world, earning himself international fame as a master of the blues.Taj Mahal is scheduled to perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 21, in Spaulding Auditorium of the Hopkins Center.Tickets are available for $16.50, $8.50 for Dartmouth students. Alex Phelps, Mahal's producer, will lead an informal Spotlight discussion entitled "Happy to be Just Like Me" prior to the concert at 7 p.m.
