About Taj Mahal tickets

For innovative bluesman Taj Mahal, it's always been about the blues, though he has ventured widely into world music and exploration of other genres, such as gospel, jazz, reggae, Caribbean, R&B, zydeco, Latin and Hawaiian. But his forays across boundaries have only informed the blues sounds and instrumentations he has pioneered in album after album. Born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks in 1942 in Harlem, New York, Taj Mahal grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of musicians, his father a jazz pianist and composer, his mother a singer in the local gospel choir. An early fan of innovative jazzers Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and Milt Jackson, Taj Mahal had an early dose of musical exploration. Around 1960, he started using the name Taj Mahal after dreaming about India, and he attended the University of Massachusetts while playing in clubs around the region, leading an R&B band called Taj Mahal & The Elektras. Following college, he headed to Santa Monica, California, and formed a band called The Rising Sons with fellow bluesman Ry Cooder, recording for Columbia Records, though the album was not released until decades later. Instead Taj Mahal released his self-titled debut in 1968, followed by The Natch'l Blues in 1969 amd Giant Step also in 1969, establishing his foothold in the world of blues. Since then, Taj Mahal has developed an impressively steady career, recording more than thirty albums, including his most recent, Maestro in 2008, constantly evolving and exploring different musical styles around the world, but always, when it comes down to it, playing the blues. For a taste of blues like no one else can play it, pick up Taj Mahal tickets.