Taj Mahal - The Real Thing - 1971 (2000)

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Taj Mahal - The Real Thing - 1971 (2000)

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Product Description: Taj Mahal's been chasing the blues around the world for years, but rarely with the passion, energy, and clarity he brought to his first three albums. Taj Mahal, The Natch'l Blues and The Real Thing are the sound of the artist, who was born in 1942, defining himself and his music. On his self-titled 1967 debut, he not only honors the sound of the Delta masters with his driving National steel guitar and hard vocal shout, but ladles in elements of rock and country with the help of guitarists Ry Cooder and the late Jessie Ed Davis. This approach is reinforced and broadened by The Natch'l Blues. What's most striking is Mahal's way of making even the oldest themes sound as if they're part of a new era. Not just through the vigor of his playing–relentlessly propulsive, yet stripped down compared with the six-string ornamentations of the original masters of country blues–but through his singing, which possesses a knowing insouciance distinct to post-Woodstock counterculture hipsters. It's the voice of an informed young man who knows he's offering something deep to an equally hip and receptive audience.
Soon, Mahal turned his multicultural vision of the blues even further outward. The live 1971 set, The Real Thing, finds him still carrying the Mississippi torch, while adding overt elements of jazz and Afro-Caribbean music to its flame. But it's overreaching. His band sounds under-rehearsed, and the arrangements seem more like rough outlines. Nonetheless, these albums set the stage for Mahal's career. (For a condensed version, try the fine The Best of Taj Mahal.) Today, he continues to make fine fusion albums, like 1999's Kulanjan, with Malian kora master Toumani Diabate, and less exciting but still eclectic recordings with his Phantom Blues Band.

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Taj Mahal - The Real Thing - 1971 (2000)

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Review: Yeah, man, the "official" reviewer just doesn't get it AT ALL. This is one of the best ROOTS recordings EVER - and I don't say that lightly. Remember…this is 1971…LIVE, a 2 LP recording, at the Fillmore…I mean, the Allman Brothers - WITH DUANE - did their recording that same year. Now, how many acts could have gotten away with playing a tune with nothing but a banjo and a TUBA, for cryin' out loud! ("Tom And Sally Drake")? Taj Mahal, that's who. Taj engages the audience as well as anyone ("Gimme some help…GIMME SOME! - You can do it…if you're jacked up to it…) and standouts here are the norm. "You're Goin' To Need Somebody On Your Bond" is the groover, with Taj 'gettin spiritual' with the blues, and doing the back and forth with the crowd. Also a highlight is "Ain't Gwine Whistle Dixie No Mo'", where every band member gets a piece of the action, and my spine tingles at the thought of John Simon groovin' on the piano, and John Hall doing a GREAT guitar solo, and ending, with Taj whistling over the many horns. No, if you don't get it, you don't get it…but I was 15…and I got it. This is Taj's moment in Time, Live - History, I believe it's called - and he grabs on and holds tight. Any fan of blues, jazz, roots, gospel, or African-American music History has to consider this a MUST HAVE CD.

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Taj Mahal - The Real Thing - 1971 (2000)

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