[Harp-L] Taj Mahal

[Richard Sleigh <rharp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Taj Mahal was also a major influence on me, as a harmonica player, guitar player, singer, and all around musician. He is also a great barrelhouse piano player. I  opened up for him once at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. He got held up in traffic and arrived backstage at exactly showtime. Someone told him there was a real good local harmonica player that could play for a few minutes to let him catch his breath. For some reason he agreed & i went up and played a ten minute set of solo harp pieces. Basically blew my brains out and walked off the stage in a pile of sweat.

Halfway through his first set, Taj called me up  to play with him & gave me a bunch of detailed instructions, referring to specific recordings with harmonica as the sound he was going for. I nodded my head as if i understood, but was totally starstruck and had no idea what he just said. So we did the song, and i knew i did not do what he was talking about, but it worked anyhow, and the crowd liked it.

Went off stage & figured that was that, but he called me up again in the next set. This time he just told me the key and the song. After the show, I talked a bit with him about being a musician, what it takes, and he just said "you gotta go out there and make your first few thousand mistakes and then learn from them". 

I was high as a kite for a few days  after this show, and it is funny, I don't remember what we played, I just remember the feeling of this massive energy and total authority he had when he was in front of that crowd. 

I also saw him once do a solo concert at Penn State where he divided up the crowd into three parts & had them all singing different parts AND clapping different rhythms. Then he rode on top of all of this with his vocals. Unbelievable.

I also opened up for him twice in this tiny dive of a joint in State College called the Brick House. It has since been torn down. The owner of the place got really drunk both times and the place was a mess. Other than complaining once about how tacky the housekeeping was, Taj basically ignored everything around him. His attitude was "might as well relax and conserve your energy".

His shows at this place were just as intense as his shows in front of thousands of people. I stood behind him as he played piano and sang. When he went into his "Howlin Wolf" voice, his neck suddenly got almost twice as wide, these muscles just popped out somehow....

One of his recordings that I really dig the harp on is "Johnny Too Bad" where he plays these fat octaves on a G harp in first position. He makes the harmonica sound like the perfect reggae instrument. Just about anything he ever did on the harp is worth studying....

Richard Sleigh
P.O. Box 23
Boalsburg PA 16827

http://www.rsleigh.com
http://www.hotrodharmonicas.com