SEALED LP: TAJ MAHAL: HAPPY JUST TO BE LIKE I AM

$

20

Taj Mahal: Happy Just to Be Like I Am

FACTORY SEALED LP

• Happy Just to Be Like I Am
• Chevrolet
• Stealin'
• Eighteen Hammers
• Tomorrow May Not Be Your Day
• OSusannah
• West Indian Revelation (AKA West Indian Reservation)
• Black Spirit Boogie

• Earl McIntyre: Trombone, Tuba, Trombone (Bass)
• James Charles Otey: Drums
• David Porow: Engineer
• Billy Rich: Bass
• David Rubinson: Producer
• Hoshal Wright: Guitar, Guitar (Electric)
• Young: Performer
• Kwasi Dzidzornu: Conga, Bells
• Bill Rich: Bass
• Al Vandenberg: Photography
• Jesse Ed Davis: Guitar (Electric)
• John Simon: Piano, Piano (Electric)
• Fred Catero: Engineer
• David Coleman: Guitar
• Joseph Daley: Trombone, Tuba
• Rocky Dzidzornu: Percussion
• George Engfer: Engineer
• Mark Freedman: Engineer
• Glen Kolotkin: Engineer
• Mike Larner: Engineer
• Andy Narell: Drums (Steel)
• Bob Stewart: Tuba, Flugelhorn
• Howard Johnson: Tuba, Arranger, Sax (Baritone)
• Taj Mahal: Banjo, Guitar (Electric), Adaptation, Main Performer, Penny Whistle, Whistle (Human), Vocals, Guitar (Steel), Fife, Arranger, Flute, Guitar, Harmonica, Mandolin

• With Happy Just to Be Like I Am, Taj Mahal offers another (possibly his most effective) course in roots music, this time dabbling in Caribbean rhythms in addition to his more-or-less standard take on acoustic country blues. While his good intentions and craftsmanlike execution can't be denied, one hopes the listener will eventually decide to seek out the inspirations for these recordings. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide

• One of the most prominent figures in late 20th century blues, singer/multi-instrumentalist Taj Mahal played an enormous role in revitalizing and preserving traditional acoustic blues. Not content to stay within that realm, Mahal soon broadened his approach, taking a musicologist's interest in a multitude of folk and roots music from around the world -- reggae and other Caribbean folk, jazz, gospel, R&B, zydeco, various West African styles, Latin, even Hawaiian. The African-derived heritage of most of those forms allowed Mahal to explore his own ethnicity from a global perspective and to present the blues as part of a wider musical context. Yet while he dabbled in many different genres, he never strayed too far from his laid-back country blues foundation. Blues purists naturally didn't have much use for Mahal's music and according to some of his other detractors, his multi-ethnic fusions sometimes came off as indulgent, or overly self-conscious and academic. Still, Mahal's concept seemed somewhat vindicated in the '90s, when a cadre of young bluesmen began to follow his lead -- both acoustic revivalists (Keb' Mo', Guy Davis) and eclectic bohemians (Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart).
• Taj Mahal was born Henry St. Clair Fredericks in New York on May 17, 1942. His parents -- his father a jazz pianist/composer/arranger of Jamaican descent, his mother a schoolteacher from South Carolina who sang gospel -- moved to Springfield, MA, when he was quite young and while growing up there, he often listened to music from around the world on his father's short-wave radio. He particularly loved the blues -- both acoustic and electric -- and early rock & rollers like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. While studying agriculture and animal husbandry at the University of Massachusetts, he adopted the musical alias Taj Mahal (an idea that came to him in a dream) and formed Taj Mahal & the Elektras, which played around the area during the early '60s. After graduating, Mahal moved to Los Angeles in 1964 and, after making his name on the local folk-blues scene, formed the Rising Sons with guitarist Ry Cooder. The group signed to Columbia and released one single, but the label didn't quite know what to make of their forward-looking blend of Americana, which anticipated a number of roots rock fusions that would take shape in the next few years; as such, the album they recorded sat on the shelves, unreleased until 1992.
• Frustrated, Mahal left the group and wound up staying with Columbia as a solo artist. His self-titled debut was released in early 1968 and its stripped-down approach to vintage blues sounds made it unlike virtually anything else on the blues scene at the time. It came to be regarded as a classic of the '60s blues revival, as did its follow-up, Natch'l Blues. The half-electric, half-acoustic double-LP set Giant Step followed in 1969 and taken together, those three records built Mahal's reputation as an authentic yet unique modern-day bluesman, gaining wide exposure and leading to collaborations or tours with a wide variety of prominent rockers and bluesmen. During the early '70s, Mahal's musical adventurousness began to take hold; 1971's Happy Just to Be Like I Am heralded his fascination with Caribbean rhythms and the following year's double-live set, The Real Thing, added a New Orleans-flavored tuba section to several tunes. In 1973, Mahal branched out into movie soundtrack work with his compositions for Sounder and the following year he recorded his most reggae-heavy outing, Mo' Roots.
• Mahal continued to record for Columbia through 1976, upon which point he switched to Warner Bros.; he recorded three albums for that label, all in 1977 (including a soundtrack for the film Brothers). Changing musical climates, however, were decreasing interest in Mahal's work and he spent much of the '80s off record, eventually moving to Hawaii to immerse himself in another musical tradition. Mahal returned in 1987 with Taj, an album issued by Gramavision that explored this new interest; the following year, he inaugurated a string of successful, well-received children's albums with Shake Sugaree. The next few years brought a variety of side projects, including a musical score for the lost Langston Hughes/Zora Neale Hurston play Mule Bone that earned Mahal a Grammy nomination in 1991. The same year marked Mahal's full-fledged return to regular recording and touring, kicked off with the first of a series of well-received albums on the Private Music label, Like Never Before. Follow-ups, such as Dancing the Blues (1993) and Phantom Blues (1996), drifted into more rock, pop, and R&B-flavored territory; in 1997, Mahal won a Grammy for Señor Blues. Meanwhile, he undertook a number of small-label side projects that constituted some of his most ambitious forays into world music. 1995's Mumtaz Mahal teamed him with classical Indian musicians; 1998's Sacred Island was recorded with his new Hula Blues Band, exploring Hawaiian music in greater depth; 1999's Kulanjan was a duo performance with Malian kora player Toumani Diabate. Maestro appeared in 2008 from Heads Up Records.

• This Sealed LP came from a record store called "Phantasmagoria" which was located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Phantasmagoria went out of business in 1978. I purchased most of their unsold inventory some years later when I owned "Music Madness" - a new & used record store in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania.
• Phantasmagoria used round colored stickers to indicate the price of the albums. They had a chart on the wall with the color sticker combinations for the customers to use so they knew the price of the albums. Most of the albums still have these stickers on them, and in some rare cases, the stickers are written on. Some of the records have prices on them. This is the price you would have paid for the record in 1978 if you would have bought it at Phantasmagoria. Please don't confuse these prices with their current value.
• All Sealed LP(s) are being sold as collector's items and cannot be returned due to manufacturer's defects. It may be almost impossible to replace many of the sealed albums that I am selling.

• If I list an album as "New", but not sealed, it is because the album is probably an import or from a small USA record company. Back in the 70's, many imported albums were not sealed by the record companies, and the importers/distrubutors did not spend the time or money to seal them before being sent to the stores. I will not knowingly misrepresent an album as new if I have any doubts.
  
• All pictures are of the exact Sealed LP being sold.
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• Please avoid questions on the last day of the auction. I might not have enough time to give you an answer before the auction ends.
• All reviews, credits and artist biographies are from All Music Guide. If you haven't been to their web site, you have to check it out. It's one of the most comprehensive music references on the internet. In some cases, credits may include reissue (CD) information. Obviously any credits referenced to CDs do not apply to this album release.

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