I am impressed by the images of the Taj Mahal tribute concert at the end of last month. In reality, it was a charity event for Sweet Relief, an organization that provides care to musicians in need. There we see a Taj Mahal with reduced mobility, along with other admirers.
I met Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr. (his real name) at the , where he impressed with his size and accessibility: selling copies of his autobiography, chatting with anyone who approached him.
The Taj Mahal that burst onto the scene back in 1968 broke the clichés of bluesman. Growing up in a middle-class family, he was a college student who began to stand out in California, driving. Faced with the agonies that seemed to be obligatory for the musicians of blues whites with a desire for credibility, he was smiling, mischievous and attached to the land: he even practiced agriculture. A multi-instrumentalist and highly educated, he clashed with the black public, whom he disconcerted with his bohemian air, just as he fascinated rock musicians. The Taj Mahal theory suggested that rock stars practiced miserabilistic blues to ward off, wow, their guilt for basing their careers on cultural appropriation.
This self-conscious attitude explains why, back in 1968, the Rolling Stones summoned him to London, as the only American representative, to participate in their Rock and Roll Circus, an ambitious television special that featured John Lennon, Eric Clapton and other superstars. It was a great opportunity… frustrated: .
I don’t think Taj Mahal wants to get that medal but I suspect he was a pioneer in the . In fact, it could be argued that he was the one who inspired what would become Buenavista Social Club, remember, initially conceived as a meeting of Cuban and African musicians, in the vein of an album like Muntaz Mahal (1995). Which brought him together with guests from India and which, it must be said, smacked slightly of musical tourism, with all the repertoire provided by Taj Mahal. Later, it should be noted, he developed more equitable approaches: his Sacred Island It offered a very relaxed meeting with Hawaiian musicians.
Did I say he’s an affable guy? And a cajoler: he spent many years billing relatively expensive records for Columbia, now Sony. Without major hits on the charts, they allowed him to do daring things like working with the brass of jazz musician Howard Johnson or recording practically an entire reggae album, when that music was not commercially established in his country.
Plus, he has a good memory. In 1970, after a love conflict, . Like so many American hippies, he ended up in Ibiza; There he coincided with some, more precisely in Moratalaz. They had a stage and Taj Mahal was presented there, performing (free of charge) for three days before the neighborhood kids. He had learned some Spanish, as he would demonstrate in 1974 in Why did you have to desert me?a nice vital chronicle. Many years later he wanted to revisit that scene. Impossible: Mayor Arias Navarro vetoed that urban project.
