Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCXVII--Taj Mahal: Queen Bee

A couple of years back I was flipping channels one night and happened to land upon The Tavis Smiley Show just as the evening's musical guest was taking the stage.  It wasn't an artist I was familiar with, but after about a minute of listening I was racing to my desk and writing down lyrics as he sang so I could look it up online later.  Turned out to be Taj Mahal (and what a hell of a moniker that is) who I was familiar with by name (and exactly one song) and he was singing a tune that was originally released when I was in high school.  Once again, the wonder that is music....

Taj Mahal was born in Harlem, New York in 1942 as Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, Jr. and spent his formative years in the thriving metropolis that is Springfield, Massachusetts.  While attending the University of Massachusetts he had a dream about India, Gandhi, and social tolerance and began calling himself Taj Mahal.  Though he had at one time considered becoming a farmer, in 1964 he moved to California and began a music career in earnest, originally teaming with fellow blues musician Ry Cooder in a band called the Rising Sons which lead to his first recording contract.  Over the course of fifty-nine years, Mahal has released 29 studio albums, eleven live albums, been nominated for ten Grammy Awards, and has won three of them.  Mahal also wrote the music for the soundtrack to the Oscar nominated film Sounder (and had a role in the movie), has appeared in eleven other movies, as well as five TV shows.  And on a side note, Mahal does a fine version of Leadbelly's "Bourgeois Blues" on Folkways:  A Vision Shared--which also happens to be one of the best cover version compilations (featuring songs by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie) albums I've ever heard.

"Queen Bee" was not released as a single so once again this week we have no shout out for Billboard magazine.  It was originally released in 1977 on Mahal's album Evolution (The Most Recent), and would make an appearance twenty years later on 1997's Senor Blues.

Cool Quote:  "I just play to the goddess of music--and I know she's dancing."--Taj Mahal on playing music outdoors (his personal preference).

"Queen Bee" is something of an oddity for me, as I'm one of about three white men in the Baby Boomer generation who does not think the Blues are the be all/end all of music, and wasn't surprised the sun didn't rise and set on the late Stevie Ray Vaughn's ass.  Nonetheless, as I noted above, when I watched Mahal perform this tune on Tavis Smiley's show I was about a minute in when I knew I needed pencil and paper so I could find it on the web.  "Queen Bee" is a love song from the soul, and Mahal sings it from his with all the joy and passion that a good woman can arouse.  Mahal's guitar playing is otherworldly--he's known for using world music, especially from Africa and the Caribbean in his music so that might explain why the sound emanating from his guitar is quite unlike anything I've heard before plucked from the magical six strings.  Add in a harmonica solo (Mahal plays several different instruments) and some nice drumming (replete with clashing cymbals), and you have a song that makes you glad that Mahal chose music over farming as a career (though farming is a fine profession...).

Lyric Sheet:  "A strutter, she can shake it some, oh dancing having fun/She love me to my soul, oh she love me to my soul..."

Enjoy:

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