Mahal Senor

Señor Blues is one of Taj Mahal's best latter-day albums, a rollicking journey through classic blues styles performed with contemporary energy and flair. There's everything from country-blues to jazzy uptown blues on Señor Blues, and Taj hits all of areas in between, including R&B and soul. Stylistically, it's similar to most of his albums, but he's rarely been as effortlessly fun and infectious as he is here.

Decades before Corey Harris, Guy Davis, and Keb' Mo' wed the Delta blues to various folk forms, there was Taj Mahal. Almost from the very beginning, Mahal provided audiences with connections to a plethora of blues styles. Further, he offered hard evidence connecting American blues to folk styles from other nations, particularly, but not limited to, those from the West Indies and various African countries, bridging gaps, highlighting similarities, and establishing links between many experiences of the African diaspora…

Throughout his career, Taj Mahal has always been considered a bluesman, which is true enough, since the basis for everything he does has been the country blues, but he is not a traditionalist at heart, and he has always looked for ways to push the blues into new places and shapes. Adding at times rhythms and sensibilities that are drawn from reggae, ragtime, calypso, zydeco, and other genres, Mahal practices a kind of blues hybrid that is his alone, and he has been a huge influence on newer artists like Chris Thomas King and Corey Harris. This collection derives from the five albums he recorded with Private Records during the 1990s, and overlaps somewhat with The Best of the Private Years, released in 2000. Highlights include his version of Doc Pomus' "Lonely Avenue," a bebop blues take on Horace Silver's "Señor Blues," and an atmospheric reading of Goffin & King's "Take a Giant Step"…