Taj Mahal - Taj Mahal (1968 usa, electric blues masterpiece, 2017 japan reissue) | Rockasteria

 Taj Mahal - Taj Mahal (1968 USA,  2017 Japanese reissue)

We mentioned Taj Mahal the other day and how it was his second album that my brother first brought a whole album to my attention after my hearing his Statesboro Blues from the compilation album Rock Machine Turns You On 1968 this is the debut album from which it comes. Sadly I didn’t get this album until long after its release!

Taj Mahal - Leaving Trunk

Taj Mahal's debut album was a startling statement in its time and has held up remarkably well. Recorded in August of 1967, it was as hard and exciting a mix of old and new blues sounds as surfaced on record in a year when even a lot of veteran blues artists (mostly at the insistence of their record labels) started turning toward psychedelia. The guitar virtuosity, embodied in Taj Mahal's slide work (which had the subtlety of a classical performance), Jesse Ed Davis's lead playing, and rhythm work by Ry Cooder and Bill Boatman, is of the neatly stripped-down variety that was alien to most records aiming for popular appeal, and the singer himself approached the music with a startling mix of authenticity and youthful enthusiasm. 

The whole record is a strange and compelling amalgam of stylistic and technical achievements -- filled with blues influences of the 1930s and 1940s, but also making use of stereo sound separation and the best recording technology. The result was numbers like Sleepy John Estes' "Diving Duck Blues," with textures resembling the mix on the early Cream albums, while "The Celebrated Walkin' Blues" (even with Cooder's animated mandolin weaving its spell on one side of the stereo mix) has the sound of a late '40s Chess release by Muddy Waters. Blind Willie McTell ("Statesboro Blues") and Robert Johnson ("Dust My Broom") are also represented, in what had to be one of the most quietly, defiantly iconoclastic records of 1968.

by Bruce Eder

Taj Mahal - Statesboro Blues

Tracks
1.Leaving Trunk (Sleepy John Estes) - 4:52
2.Statesboro Blues (Blind Willie McTell) - 2:59
3.Checkin' Up On My Baby (Sonny Boy Williamson) - 4:55
4.Everybody's Got To Change Sometime (Sleepy John Estes) - 2:58
5.E Z Rider (Taj Mahal) - 3:04
6.Dust My Broom (Robert Johnson) - 2:39
7.Diving Duck Blues (Sleepy John Estes) - 2:43
8.The Celebrated Walkin' Blues (Traditional) - 8:53

Musicians
*Taj Mahal - Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals, Slide Guitar
*Ry Cooder - Rhythm Guitar, Mandolin
*Jessie Edwin Davis - Lead Guitar, Piano
*Bill Boatman - Rhythm Guitar
*Christopher Sisson - Acoustic Guitar
*James Thomas - Bass
*Gary Gilmore - Bass
*Sanford Konikoff - Drums
*Charles Blackwell - Drums

Taj Mahal "Ain't That A Lot Of Love" - The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus 1968