Additional information
Personnel: Taj Mahal (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, harmonica, piano, electric piano); Hoshal Wright (guitar, electric guitar); Rudy Costa (alto flute, clarinet, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, kalimba); Earl Lindo (keyboards); Kwasi "Rocky" Dzidzornu, Larry McDonald (congas, percussion); Kester Smith (percussion); Jo Baker, Intergalactic Soul Messengers Band, Annie Sampson, Carole Fredericks (background vocals). Audio Remasterer: Andrew Thompson . Liner Note Author: John O'Regan. Recording information: CBS Studios, San Francisco. Photographers: John Ford ; Burnell Caldwell. Taj Mahal's musicologist's approach to African-based roots music -- which saw the singer and multi-instrumentalist exploring fusions of reggae, Caribbean folk, jazz, gospel, R&B, zydeco, various West African styles, and, of course, traditional country blues -- was often a sort of hit-or-miss process, and if he now seems to be the clear forerunner of contemporary blues artists like Keb' Mo', Guy Davis, Corey Harris, and Alvin Youngblood Hart, Mahal was out there on his own stylistic island in the 1960s and 1970s, a maverick who mostly confused and frustrated blues traditionalists who were by nature more concerned about preservation than innovation. This interest in what came to be known as world music seems like an obvious direction all these decades later, but when the two LPs combined in this set, 1975's Music Keeps Me Together (which explored Jamaican and Caribbean rhythms) and 1976's Satisfied `n Tickled Too (which had almost no blues content at all and was more of an R&B album with some reggae tossed in), were released, few understood what Mahal was aiming for -- it could even be said that Mahal wasn't that sure either, since his musical experiments on these two albums were often tentative rather than huge bold statements. He got better at it as time went on, but these two releases, tentative or not, are where he got the ball rolling. ~ Steve Leggett
