Taj Mahal Interview deel 3

BluesWax Sittin' In With

Taj Mahal

The Maestro Interview

Part Three

By Don Wilcock

Taj Mahal

This week we conclude our conversation with Taj Mahal (if you missed Part Two last week click HERE to read it now in our ARCHIVES). We continue the conversation between Don Wilcock and Taj Mahal with more about Mahal's release Maestro...

Don Wilcock for BluesWax: You really turned my head back in the Sixties because you were from western Massachusetts, an agricultural student. That was like, "Whoa! That's different 'cause I'm listening to Howlin' Wolf and I'm listening to Muddy Waters.

Taj Mahal: But where were they at? They were in the South. In the South they were involved in agriculture and what brought them north was the mechanization of agriculture and less jobs and less handwork for them to do, and so why would they stay [in the South]? Then, they went up north where they got all these great jobs. They still had to work. They had the work ethic deep in them. So, they could do all the heavy labor jobs. That meant the Irish, Italians, Lithuanians, the Estonians, the Latvians, the Poles, various different types of Jews, East and Western Europe being Jews, were moving up into different sections and away from the physical hard labor because the southerners came up to replace them. So, they started moving up to middle management.

BW: So why did you take agriculture at UMass?

TM: I was messin' around with this, that, the other thing; plunking at the piano; blowing on the trumpet; trying to play a clarinet, that little harmonica; playing at the piano; listening to that music. I was dancing and doo-wop bands and all that stuff, but I was interested in farming because I figured, I'll do it when I'm in high school. I'll go to the school band and then when I get out I'll still be interested, I'll jump into farming. But what happened was Springfield [Massachusetts] didn't have anything like that. So, I went to West Springfield, which is basically like six miles, and the first year I was there they underestimated the incoming class and lot of kids came in. So, they moved our department. So, I had to go further to Westfield. So, three years, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade, I was in vocational agriculture, involved in it. So, summers we had to do what was called "placement." Placement was like in the vocational or whatever your endeavor was, and so I was so thrilled to have the opportunity to get the hell out of the city and be in the country.

Also, soon as I got out and started going to West Springfield High School, I started working all my weekends, all my vocations, all my summers on the farm. This was great; get the heck out of there, get out there with all that space. I had a lot of stuff going for me, but the point was that was at a point where the little bit of music I had started picking up on the guitar from my neighbor Lynwood Smith. He was from down South, straight out of the South, and then it all made sense 'cause that's workin' people's music. They ain't lollygaggin' music. Like I love Smokey Robinson, but Smokey ain't gonna help you bale no hay or milk no cows!

Most of the guys that I grew up around in the northern situation thought that music to be real backwoods and real down home, and they were very much embarrassed by who they were as Africans, as African Americans, whatever they wanted to call themselves at the time, and I wasn't raised that way. I was raised that all that was good about us was good, all that was bad about us was bad, and people needed to work on themselves and given the way things are set up here in this country we was bound to be working all our lives forever because it was an unbroken line. But the music was the most important thing. Personally, the way I really started with the music was there was only one personal interest. It had nothing to do with anybody. I had no interest in playing music to be popular. That was something that came along as a result of playing.

"Like I love Smokey Robinson,
but Smokey ain't gonna help you
bale no hay or milk no cows!"

BW: You are a very rare individual.

TM: Oh, I don't know how rare it is.

BW: Most African Americans in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1960 wouldn't have given a second thought about being in agriculture. They would have thought it wasn't cool.

TM: There was reason for people to think that way, but that's because they're thinking backward, they're not thinking forward. Thinking forward tells you, "Well, wait a second. If ultimately one percent are raising food for 300 million people, something can go wrong." That's a lot of power that somebody has over who you are. That was my point. My point was that I could see that future was gonna get pretty dicey. I didn't know how, when, where. So, I said the only thing that would drive me crazy if I couldn't make music, that would be the thing because what's happened has got us tied to the radio and I'm not gonna be tied to the radio. I'll take my chances with making music. This is what people did. This is what people did for eons. I'm going with the long vision.

BW: You were right because radio has just gone totally to hell.

TM: Oh, yeah, that's only because we as people don't demand anything more. If they're not playing what you like, you go find what you like, but that's not the way people are taught. People are taught to whine about what it is they don't have from where it's coming from as opposed to say, "Okay, well, what can I do?"

BW: That's why I subscribe to XM Satellite Radio 'cause there are people like Bill Wax who will put you on for two hours straight and let you talk.

TM: The big record companies are not gonna spend no dime putting me on. Why do they want me to come on and give an example of how you can do it on your own? Do you think Keb' Mo' could exist without what it is that I did? No!

BW: No.

TM: No, wouldn't happen. There's a hell of a lot more black people that are involved in this. It's just that nobody's connecting with them. It's like they completely left that whole group of black people out where now what they're doing in actuality is that it's Time Life talking about midnight Soul. They gotMarvin Gaye and "Sexual Healing." They got Peabo Bryson, and they've got this one and that one, Luther Vandross, 'til all these groups come out and they go, "Wait a minute! Those guys put those albums out with one hit on it." Eventually, they call them Soul hits and make these people buy that record twice. That's exactly what they're doing. But that's all they have for that group. It's people making money with that group of people now by having R&B shows that go down to the Caribbean or an R&B cruise. Okay, it's like the Blues Cruise; I'm on that thing.

I see what's happening, as deep as American and vital and important to the whole music scene as the music is, the industry which is all suits, lawyers, and accountants, we could be selling shoes. It doesn't matter. So, we don't have music people involved in it anymore and I mean what they've done is shift all the information and energy and it's all focused now around Rap and Hip Hop. I'm mad at rappers 'cause they're making money, but that's not all of black culture in America and that's what the people in the record industry want everybody to think. That's all it is. Motherfuckers bitchin' at ho's, you know?

BW: How have you survived for 40 years? Has it been alright? Have you been doing okay all that time?

TM: Like anything else, I could have done much better. No argument on that, but you know when you think about 40 years of doing it, none of my kids are in jail. Hey, they ain't drug addicts. They've got good lives going for them. Know what I mean? I would love to have done better, but what can you say? You can't really complain about that. I mean, I haven't been out on the street; I've been working. There's a lot of years it would have been nice to have a vacation and spend more time around my family. That is truth. All of us will say that. You can't get it for nothing. You get no free months, but the bottom line was I wanted to play the music. That wasn't how the industry was set up.

Taj Mahal's Maestro

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BW: You really have played an important role in my life in terms of my enjoying the music and understanding where you come from in terms of not just being another recording artist, but somebody who obviously loves all of the music and really is in it from his heart, his soul, and not from his head, and I love that.

TM: Thanks very much. I really appreciate it, but I also want everybody to enjoy it. I also saw the charade that came down from the record companies where they were just hiding who you got to listen to and that's why the next book I'm going to do is basically about the music. I did one basically about my personal life up to that point, figuring I'll show all the warts and sores and then you don't have to do that. So, I really want to write about the music and the time. Look at the other incredible brother that came along at the time,Richie Havens. How the hell! The guy was the front end of Woodstock. Everybody talks about everybody else: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Santana, a little bit about Sly & the Family Stone, but they don't ever really bring his voice in. Here's a cat that really threw it down and what did he do? What kind of music did he do? And he's still been working. He hasn't stopped. He works every fuckin' weekend. He was all over this movement. There's still a lot to get out. I'm not hollerin' that they didn't tell the story, I'm just saying that it's time to unearth a lot of stories. That's all.

Don Wilcock is a contributing editor at BluesWax. You may contact Don at blueswax@visnat.com.