Track Listing

1. Good Morning Miss Brown
2. Corrina
3. I Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Steal My Jellyroll
4. Going Up to the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue
5. Done Changed My Way of Living
6. She Caught the Katy (And Left Me a Mule to Ride)
7. Cuckoo
8. You Don't Miss Your Water ('Til You Well Runs Dry)
9. Ain't That a Lot of Love
10. Cuckoo [Alternate Version][#][*]
11. New Strangers Blues [#][*]
12. Things Are Gonna Work Out Fine [#][*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14191 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2000-09-05
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.com
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. --Ted Drozdowski

Customer Reviews

'Lighthearted' blues, but great music nevertheless
I first bought this (early spring 1969) probably more for the astounding-looking cover (both front and rear) than for any other reason; but I had an idea that the music was going to be really good, and I was right. The breezes would be blowing through open windows, and listening to this made me feel like I was already outside, someplace way out in the country.

Taj Mahal plays/sings the blues with an uncharacteristically light, almost happy manner [despite what many would consider to be out of character], and in doing so, makes these tunes his own. Many of the songs mine the sub-genre of blues which uses more emotionally upbeat melodies and whose often humorous lyrics include plentifully adroit turns-of-phrase.

"My baby she long . . . my baby she tall. She sleeps with her head in the kitchen and her big feets out in the hall. So crazy 'bout that hard-headed woman 'o mine!"

Maybe that coterie of listeners which persists in honking about how the blues have to be down, dirty and depressing won't like this, but I'd say they might be missing something. If, as people who know the blues say, one sings it in order to better survive, there must be times when the blues uplifts into a comedy zone, or else music like this collection wouldn't have a genuine reason to exist. Myself, I'm very grateful it's here, intact.

Yeah it's the blues...got me smiling too!
I played the original vinyl release in 1969 until you could practically see through it. It was, and remains, a lesson in how to re-energize and re-interpret a type of music without losing sight of the traditions within. Taj, with the invaluable help of his tight and funky band, particularly the late, great, guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, just tears his way effortlessly through any manner of blues you care to name. Country blues ? "She Caught The Katy" is a whipsaw romp through an old Yank Rachael tune with Taj showing his considerable harp skills to good effect. How about some soul? "You Don't Miss Your Water" is the finest version of this soul standard I have ever heard and there's some good ones out there too. A little rock in your sock? "Ain't That A Lotta Love", a horn powered stroll through Bobby Bland territory, will put it there for ya. Taj has gone on through his illustrious career to explore many other types of music and it's all been first rate, but for sheer youthful fun and exuberance you can start right here. The bonus tracks are a nice addition too because there's no such thing as too much Taj.

Very good follow-up to a magnificent debut album
Henry St. Clair Fredericks' first album, the eponymous "Taj Mahal", was a stripped-down collection of superbly produced acoustic Delta blues, and his second album, "The Natch'l Blues", opens with more of the same.
But the scope quickly broadens, as Al Kooper is added on organ, and the album then moves on to a much bigger sound, as Taj Mahal is backed by a full electric combo on songs like "She Caught The Katy" and "The Cuckoo", and a soul-flavoured rendition of "You Don't Miss Your Water".

Depending on your taste, this album is either better than its predecessor because of its greater variety, or slightly lesser because it lacks some of the originality and the sparse, "bluesy" feel of "Taj Mahal".
The slightly stereotypical soul of "You Don't Miss Your Water" and "Ain't That A Lotta Love" may not be to everybody's liking, but Taj Mahal's rendition of "She Caught The Katy", and his own "Corrina", "I Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Steal My Jellyroll", "Going Up To The Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue", and the jazzy "Good Morning Miss Brown" are all excellent, as is the band and the clear, uncluttered production.