Taj Mahal performs Saturday – In Surround Sounds, Justin McGowan discusses the legendary artist.

Taj Mahal’s career reads like a history of American music. During the course of his 45-year recording career, he has managed to stay true to his blues roots. However, none have pushed the boundaries of the blues to such lengths by dabbling in countless other genres that make up the patchwork of American musical tradition.

With his 1968 self-titled debut, Taj (born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks) burst onto the scene as a slick and rowdy contemporary harp and guitar-wielding blues man. He penned his own songs, but also put a progressive spin on blues standards by Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Sleepy John Estes. As fun as it is to listen to the unbridled energy of Taj in 1968, it’s difficult to imagine the impressive amount of artistic ground that he would cover in the coming decades.

As his horizons broadened, he began to blend disparate elements of many different genres into his blues foundation, weaving sounds from Africa, the Caribbean and the West Indies into his energetic, feel-good country blues. In a way, his career has been spent breaking apart rock ‘n’ roll into its separate base elements, and traveling as far down the road with each as his fancy dictates.

After spending extended periods celebrating the possibilities of country blues, electric blues, rock and folk, he gradually embraced childhood influences and others from around the world, managing at the same time to carry his education in each successive genre along with him. As a result, the modern day incarnation of Taj Mahal is a wonderfully indiscernible mish-mash of dozens of different cultures living harmoniously as one, each one as valued and viable as the next.

Taj Mahal is a professor emeritus of American culture. At this stage in his career, he will float effortlessly between acoustic country blues, early folk standards, straightforward rock and roll, gospel hymns, Stax-era soul burners, slave spirituals, Hawaiian traditional, reggae, or whatever else strikes his fancy at the moment. You name it, he’s been there, he’s played with the best, and still continues to pull them all off convincingly.

If you still need convincing, please listen to the song below, which, in its beautiful simplicity and raw emotion, is one of the greatest songs ever recorded.

The Taj Mahal Trio, Saturday June 1, Manship Theatre at The Shaw Center. Purchase tickets here.