Reviewed on Friday April 1
His moniker, for starters, is not your traditional bluesman kind of name. But Taj Mahal has always run his own race through nearly 50 years in the industry.
When his peers took the blues to rougher, rockier places in the ’70s, Mahal kept things laid-back, adopting island rhythms and fusing elements of world music. While his contemporaries stuck to their slick suits, he chose full cowboy regalia: tasselled suede jacket, bolo tie and Stetson, occasionally switching it up for an African kufi hat and dashiki shirt.
He turned the standard blues sentiment of woke-up-this-morning-feeling-so-bad-cause-she-left-me on its head, expressing instead the joys of life and the happiness found in a solid relationship.
It’s a very Taj Mahal move that the support for his Bluesfest sideshow wasn’t blues at all but a Chilean folk guitarist. Armed with only an acoustic guitar, Victor Martinez jammed on South American rhythms, demonstrating his complete mastery of his instrument. He played not just the notes but the hums, squeaks and buzzes in between, at one point flipping his guitar and thumping it all over like a bongo.
Mahal opened with a quip – “Are y’all ready to take a ride? Because I’m not… just kidding, let’s go” – and kept things jovial throughout. Between songs he was chatty and cheeky, sharing stories of catching 300-pound marlins and the merits of listening to vinyl “the best way, in the room, not through tiny earbuds”. The 73-year-old proved both a raconteur and flirty, dirty uncle, and every so often flashed the whites of his eyes to let you know we were all just having some fun.
“A lot of people play down to their audience,” he said. “Don’t think of this as a concert, but like we’re all just hanging out playing some music.”
Wearing a white-brimmed hat, gold chain and a gem in his ear, he sat on a stool surrounded by guitars (including a bronze resonator that he joked was “good in a bar fight”) as he rattled through his plentiful hits and blues standards. Though the crowd watched in hushed reverence to begin with, eventually his easy-going demeanour rubbed off. By the end the audience was whooping and singing along, calling out to him to smile for photos. “Put that on Facebook, let’s send me viral,” he joked.
Viral web fame is probably ambitious, but his positive outlook was certainly infectious. A hugely fun night with a blues (and beyond) legend who still has a twinkle in his eye.
