Jay Blakesberg
Keb’ Mo’ (left), and Taj Mahal won a Grammy this year for "TajMo."
Discussing the blues with Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ is like feasting on a grand buffet of American roots music — one that’s well seasoned with international notes and ancestral accents.
“A lot of things have ongoing appeal, but for the blues it’s the truth of the music,” says Mo’ (aka Kevin Moore) in a phone interview with Isthmus. “Truth sticks out no matter what you do, and you can’t have a good blues song without the truth.”
Mahal, born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks Jr., agrees. “I’ve traveled the world since the late 1960s and all you have to do is play three notes in a particular style and everyone knows where it comes from. It’s enduring music, and has helped a lot people communicate their innermost thoughts.”
Mahal, 75, and Mo’, 65, have been playing the blues separately for a long time. As TajMo, they will bring their classic blues approaches to Overture Center on Aug. 8 for the latest stop on a tour that spins off the pair’s 2018 Grammy Award-winning TajMo (Concord Records).
Emerging bluesman Jontavious Willis, 21, will open for the pair.
“That’s my wonderboy, the wunderkind,” Mahal says on Willis’ website. “He’s a great new voice of the 21st century in acoustic blues. I just love the way he plays.”
Mahal, who’s been strumming the blues on guitar and banjo under his India-inspired stage name since about 1960, knows whereof he speaks. Born in Harlem to a musical family and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, Mahal was exposed early to a variety of musical styles by his Afro-Caribbean jazz-arranger father and educator/gospel singer mother. As a youth he learned classical piano, studied African music and even sang in a doo-wop group.
It wasn’t until his father passed away and Mahal moved with his mother to North Carolina that he developed a taste for the blues. His stepfather had a guitar, and the teen took lessons from neighbor Lynwood Perry, the nephew of bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup.
“My parents and my culture were the greatest influences on me,” Mahal says. “I grew up in the 1940s and don’t remember a day in my life when music wasn’t a part of it. The great records were coming out and artists were living and playing the music like it was the water you drank everyday.
“My greatest strength may have been my curiosity to connect with my ancestors,” Mahal adds. “But I haven’t been choppin’ no cotton, I haven’t been cuttin’ no cane. So why do I always need to hear the blues?”
Mo’, who has playing the blues since 1980, has carved a significant path of his own.
A native of Compton, the Los Angeles suburb better know for gangsta rappers N.W.A., Mo’ has been called a “living link” to the Mississippi Delta blues that became America’s musical heartbeat. His style, built on a foundation of gospel and traditional acoustic blues, has been influenced by jazz, rock, folk and other genres.
Early on Mo’ jammed with blues legends Albert Collins and Big Joe Turner, and he also received his first gold record for the song “Git Fiddler,” which appeared on Jefferson Starship’s 1975 album Red Octopus. He has performed with Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, with Elmo and Kermit the Frog on Sesame Street, and at the Obama White House.
“I would say that B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Tampa Red and Robert Johnson all had a great effect on my music,” Mo says. “Howlin’ Wolf is probably the daddy of all the bluesmen. He is the epitome; he’s undeniable.
“And Taj Mahal, too,” Mo’ adds. “He’s a walking encyclopedia of knowledge and he speaks several languages. If there were such a thing as a bachelor’s [degree] of the blues, Taj would be it.”
“He says that on stage every night,” Mahal responds. “A lot of artists aren’t that generous. It’s wonderful to be working with him.”
Both men are betting on the blues not only for their livelihood, but for its enduring power.
“It’s an international language that moves everyone at a visceral level,” Mahal says. “I like Mozart and Chevalier, but once you have the blues in your music, there’s nothing else you can do.”
Mo’ agrees. “Blues tells the story of our country, of the African American experience and how it became the American experience and, ultimately, the world experience. It’s one of our enduring art forms, along with jazz and Norman Rockwell paintings.
“We paid dearly for it,” Mo’ adds, “but in the end it’s a beautiful thing.”
