The blues singer and multi-instrumentalist Taj Mahal began his career in the late sixties, making albums of stark vintage sounds. He has since embraced influences from Hawaii, the Caribbean, Africa, and many other places, but his heart lies with the unheralded musicians of the Deep South. He’s long been a supporter of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a nonprofit based in Hillsborough, North Carolina, which for the past twenty years has been helping older blues artists to continue to perform.
On August 10th, the Music Maker Blues Revue comes to Lincoln Center. The show will feature Dom Flemons, a young multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops; Beverly (Guitar) Watkins, a hard-stomping singer and guitarist; and Ironing Board Sam, a keyboardist who, when he started out, in the fifties, propped his instrument on an ironing board. Taj Mahal spoke to me recently about the importance of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, and shared a few of his favorite tracks by artists connected to the organization.
When the foundation was formed, in the nineties, Mahal told me, “so many so-called scholars and ethnomusicologists were certain that all the Southern music of any significance or importance had been chronicled and documented and there wasn’t any more to be had. Along comes M.M.R.F. and—bang!—we got a whole new ball of wax with tons of talent and not one with a familiar name at all. Colorful names, no less, but completely unknown outside their own community, local area, or ‘drink house’ (a modern-day combo of bar, social club, check-cashing facility, and sometime dance hall, usually located in someone’s house).”
“Many of these musicians were passed up by talent scouts, or were locally successful and made recordings years ago, or were never discovered at all,” Mahal continued. “Some left home in the South and plied their musical wares and talents in the industrial cities of the North. Many, tired of the constant noise and calamity of those cities, returned back South and, as often as not, to a poverty-stricken or nearly poverty-stricken life.”
Here is Mahal’s playlist, with his notes below. (Several songs feature Mahal on instruments.)
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1. Cootie Stark, “High Yellow,” featuring Taj Mahal. Stark spent his whole life playing on the streets of Southern cities, tobacco towns, and hamlets. Dressed sharp, he was always pleasant! Here’s his take on the topic of a certain kind of sought-after, good-lookin’ woman that many Southern men dreamed about having in their lives.
2. Neal (Big Daddy) Pattman, “Shortnin’ Bread,” featuring Taj Mahal. I learned this old-time song from my mom when I was a child of three or four years old, and continue to hear it from so many different people and sources (mostly Southern) to this very day. Pattman drops in some brand-new verses and creates a version that I had never heard in all my years of listening and knowing this Southern classic.
3. Precious Bryant, “If You Don’t Love Me, Would You Fool Me Good.” Every time I hear Bryant’s voice, it’s as if I’ve known her forever but am hearing the song for the very first time! She just engages you on the spot.
4. Beverly (Guitar) Watkins, “Back in Business!” This lady is a flat-out musician who can duke it out onstage with the best there is—man, woman, or child prodigy. You have not seen a show until you catch Ms. Beverly in action! I’m still feeling the effects, and have some great memories of touring the country and playing onstage with her.
5. Adolphus Bell, “Child Support Blues.” This man knew what entertainment was all about. Bell could take any group of folks—indoor, outdoor, onstage, in the park, on a cruise ship, in a club, wherever—and have them rollin’ with laughter and music. No topic was taboo.
6. Eddie Tigner, “Route 66.” Now this is some real cool, smooth music! Makes you want to get out on the road in a convertible and drive ole Route 66 to L.A. again. I’ve known this song since the late forties, a Nat King Cole record my parents had and played a lot at house parties along with other great music of that era.
7. Captain Luke, “Old Black Buck,” featuring Cool John Ferguson. The absolutely amazing coffee-and-deep-molasses voice of Captain Luke and the beautifully country-picked guitar of Cool John breathe new life and nuance into this rural classic. This song is sung in many different traditions in the South, where tales of exceptional animals abound.
8. John Dee Holeman, “Mistreated Blues,” featuring Taj Mahal. John Dee hails from Louisburg, North Carolina, where my late friend and first and only guitar teacher came from. Upon meeting John Dee and playing with him for the first time, I remarked that he played just like my guitar teacher Lynwood Perry, from Louisburg. He said, “I’m from Louisburg!” We’ve been fast friends and musical pals ever since.
9. Neal (Big Daddy) Pattman, “Catfish Blues,” featuring Taj Mahal and Cootie Stark. A Mississippi Delta classic that made its way through the South, bluesman by bluesman, and into countless repertoires. Here Pattman gives us a soulful reading, as if we are being pulled downstream by the big river itself.
