Taj Mahal - Taj Mahal (1968 / 2000 reissue)

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King Taj

This album is 55 years old but sounds almost as if it had been recorded yesterday. Normal, it's Taj Mahal, and Taj Mahal, a man who knows about the blues, is timeless.

This self-titled debut album, recorded during the summer of 1967 and released in early 1968, became afterwards a classic of the 1960s blues revival. Mahal straight vintage blues sound was unlike almost anything else on the blues scene at the time. It was recorded with two prestigious guitar accomplices : teenage friend Ry Cooder on rhythm and the late Jesse Ed Davis, an authentic Native American, on lead. All three were already playing together in the Los Angeles-based blues-rock band The Rising Sons since 1964.