PORT ANGELES — The legendary Taj Mahal and his Trio will perform in Port Angeles on Wednesday.
The show sponsored by the Juan de Fuca Foundation will begin at 7 p.m. at the Port Angeles Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave.
Tickets are from $20 to $43; youth 14 and under are admitted for $10.
Ticket outlets are at www.jffa.org and at Port Book and News in Port Angeles and Joyful Noise Music in Sequim.
“I’ve never heard anybody come up and tell me that the music I’m playing don’t feel good,” Taj Mahal has said.
And it’s hard to imagine he ever will,” said Dan Maquire, executive director of the Juan de Fuca Foundation for the the Arts.
“Whether he’s performing solo or fronting a cooking R&B outfit, Taj Mahal proves that the blues is more than three chords and is far from depressing.”
Taj Mahal, who will appear with Bill Rich on bass and Kester Smith on drums, is one of the most prominent and influential figures in late 20th century blues and roots music.
In addition to guitar (both electric and acoustic, both slide and standard), Mahal is proficient on harmonica, piano, clawhammer banjo, upright bass, mandolin, and ukulele, and his arsenal of instruments is always expanding, along with his range of styles — all immediately and indelibly stamped with his signature.
Of course, as solid as Taj’s blues credentials are, he’s much more than that.
Even though his highly recommended you’d be hard-pressed to name an artist who is so completely at home in so many genres – and on so many instruments.
In addition to guitar (both electric and acoustic, both slide and standard), Mahal is proficient on harmonica, piano, clawhammer banjo, upright bass, mandolin, and ukulele, and his arsenal of instruments is always expanding, along with his range of styles – all immediately and indelibly stamped with his signature.
The son of a North Carolinian mother and a jazz pianist/arranger father of Caribbean descent, Mahal grew up in New York City and Springfield, Mass., and went to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst during the early-’60s folk boom.
After moving to Los Angeles, he entered the Topanga Canyon Banjo & Fiddle Contest, where his bluesy clawhammer banjo style was such a contrast to reigning champion David Lindley’s flamenco-inspired excursions that the judges declared a tie.
He has recorded some three-dozen albums, in addition to soundtracks (like his classic picking and composing for 1973’s Sounder), children’s albums and several retrospectives.
He has collaborated with Indian slide guitarist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Kulanjan, with Malian kora player Toumani Diabate and Hanapepe Dream, with his Hula Blues aggregation.
Although his memoir is “Taj Mahal: Autobiography Of A Bluesman,” he has reached far beyond the blues in his five-decade career, stretching to playing music from virtually every corner of the world.
Mahal has been nominated for 10 Grammy awards, winning three times including this year for an album he made with Keb Mo.
In 2014, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement for Performance Award at the 13th Annual Americana Honors and Awards.
The award recognized the singer, songwriter, film composer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for “decades of recording and touring that have nearly single-handedly reshaped the definition and scope of the blues via the infusion of exotic sounds from around the world.”
