Taj Mahal - Original Album Classics
After reading the book on Jesse Ed Davis, I wanted to discover more of Mahal's music so I grabbed this 3 CD set for a reasonable price. Of course, I have heard some of his music, but this seemed like a good overview. Oddly, this set collects the first two studio albums then jumps 6 years to a 1974 release - no idea why, but it's a shame as he made several records in between (he has an impressive discography) and there was much better music to include.
I first became aware of Taj due to the Rolling Stones Rock'n'Roll Circus and so I expected his music to all be in a similar R'n'B/Blues-y vein. But his records are a much more mixed bag, so much so that I wasn't sure how to react to it all at first. Certainly some R'n'B influences - though not much as dominant as "Ain't That a Lot of Love" - but mixed with pop and the blues wasn't necessary the electric blues of the later British bands, but early country blues combined with folk and whatever else popped into Taj's mind. Certainly not a purist in any contemporary sense!
Disc 1 is the self-titled debut album and is fairly blues oriented, but with Taj's (and the band's, of course) own twists to it. They are not trying to slavishly recreate older music but are content with branding it with their our style. Opening with "Leaving Trunk", a funky, blues with excellent playing all around and with the band giving a great groove. They follow that with their take on "Statesboro Blues", which highlights Jesse Ed Davis' slide work and which caused the Allman Brothers and Duane to cover it and influenced Duane to pick up his Coricidin bottle, which in turn influenced countless guitarists to pick up some kind of slide. "Checking Up On My Baby" is a rockin' blues that shows off Jesse's piano playing as well as his lead guitar, and side one of the album closed with another in the same upbeat vein, "Everybody's Got To Change Sometime" - again with great playing all around, fine vocalizing from Taj and nice slide work.
Side two of the vinyl kicks off with "EZ Rider", with an arrangement by Taj, who blows some mean harp here, and he and Jesse trade off riffs for Robert Johnson's "Dust My Broom", "Diving Duck Blues" is a hip mid-tempo blues arrangement of various tunes, it seems, with more fine slide work, and the album finished off with a slow, drivin' blues with Ry Cooder on mandolin and Taj on acoustic slide, showing that he was a terrific player himself (I have another album that has a number of songs with just Taj and his guitar and it's all pretty amazing). All in all, a pretty fab debut record!
Disc two is dedicated to the album, The Natch'l Blues, opening with "Good Morning Miss Brown", a bit of a poppier blues with Al Kooper on piano, followed by "Corinna", the trad song given a cool arrangement by Taj & Jesse, "I Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Steal My Jellyroll" is an upbeat boogie blues, the funnily titled "Going Up the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue" is a mid-tempo groover and side one's closer, "Done Changed My Way of Living", is a 7+ minute long, Howlin' Wolf-styled blues with some stylin' playing - think this is Taj here, rather than Jesse, although I'm sure he gets his licks in there somewhere!
Flip over the vinyl and there's another interesting title, "She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule To Ride", which, funnily, sounds to me like a blues filtered through the likes of Leon Russell via Bob Dylan - or something like that! "The Cuckoo", as with a number of Taj's tunes, seems to incorporate a number of older blues, and has another hip groove to it, then the band gets truly soulful in "You Don't Miss Your Water" and this album closed with the R'n'B stomper, "Ain't That a Lot of Love" and while I'm so used to the incredible R'n'R Circus version that this horn-drenched take is a bit of a surprise, but it's also great in its own way.
Surprisingly, as most of the CDs in these packaged sets are only the original vinyl albums, this CD includes bonus tracks, with another take on "The Cuckoo" (pretty great, actually), as well as "New Stranger Blues", a slow, moody number with soulful playing by all, especially Jesse on guitar, and finally, "Things Are Gonna Work Out Fine", which doesn't appear to be any of the similarly titles tunes I know of, but a rollickin' instrumental, which gives everyone a chance to show off - a nice ending!
Disc 3 Mo’ Roots, though, is essentially unlistenable as it is simply AOR-oriented terrible reggae - really nothing redeeming about the whole album. I feel bad being this harsh but especially after the quality of the first two albums, this is exceedingly bad.
Considering that this is a discounted set, it is worth it for the first two CD's but you can slip the last one and search for some of Taj's other work like Giant Step, which I wish had been included here instead.
posted by rich @ 9:32 AM
