"I’m interested in passing along something positive from generation to generation. I just didn’t really want those voices to be lost out there, and those styles of music. Personally, I didn’t care whether or not it was a career to make money. I would be just as happy being a farmer playing on playing on the weekend or at night when I got done with work, because the music really was, for me, my personal therapy. I wasn’t really out to try to win over the world.
I’m taking my signal from some American musicians, but I take my deeper signal from musicians from another continent, born in a musician clan and class, who have been musicians for generations.
When I was in Africa in 1979, we visited 13 countries as musical ambassadors from the United States. I remember one of the conversations, when a guy came up to me, an African brother, who said, “My brother, tell me, what do you do?” And I said, “Oh, I play music.” He says, “Yes, yes, I knew that. But what do you do?” [laughs]
We went back and forth with this like a couple, three times. And then I realized what he was asking me, and I said, “I’m a farmer.” He says, “Oh, good, good, good.” Music is like breathing there."
Interview By Josef Woodard / Downbeat
Taj Mahal sits on the veranda of his home in Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles, December
Photographer: Baron Wolman
No comments:
Post a Comment