Taj Mahal at the Vogue

While I’m catching up on posts…

Another friend asked if I was interested in going to see Taj Mahal on August 12th. Me, being a philistine, had no idea who he was talking about. It turns out the Taj Mahal guy is a legendary blues musician, still on the road in his eighties. He sent me this video from a year ago:

I can groove to that. Sure.

Something I didn’t appreciate as much as I should’ve on stage was how much of it was improvised. There were several times where Taj Mahal would start playing something, and the others on stage would come in one at a time while they found entry points. It was all really good, but I bet that different performers would have vastly different takes on the material.

There was a special guest for the show at the Vogue, a Canadian musician who played the steel guitar¹. I’m not sure if there’s a sadder instrument — even at its brightest, it sounds mournful. I tried to Google who it was, but instead I found a video someone took from the show:

Anyway. It was a good time, even for a philistine like myself. 😃

Everyone on stage.

A close up of Taj Mahal.

The bass guitarist and steel guitarist.