Taj Mahal & the Hula Blues Band
Waterfront Blues Festival
Portland, OR.
7/3/03

Broadcast on KBOO FM > MD > HD > FLAC

1 - Coconut Man
2 - Fishin' Blues
3 - Creole Belle
4 - New Hula Do
5 - Rock Me To My Soul
6 - Moonlight Ladies
7 - Sacred Island
8 - I'm Livin On Easy
9 - Sittin' On Top Of The World
10 - Blues Ain't Nothin'

Remember to enjoy the music and please pass it along to your friends and neighbors, twofthrs

"Taj is the most important bridge we have between blues, rock 'n" roll and contemporary music. He's as bad as they get." - Bonnie Raitt

One of the most prominent figures in late 20th century blues, singer and multi-instrumentalist Taj Mahal has played an enormous role in revitalizing and preserving traditional acoustic blues. But Grammy Award-winning Mahal cannot be pigeonholed. For several decades, this roots-music icon has performed and recorded everything from blues, reggae and Zydeco to gospel, calypso, jazz, African folk and the "slack-key" classics, influenced by his years living in Hawaii, that he performs with the Hula Blues Band.

Though he has dabbled in many genres, Taj has never strayed too far from his laid-back country blues foundation. Over the past decade, he has inspired a cadre of young bluesmen such as Keb' Mo, Guy Davis and Corey Harris.

In the film industry, the multi-talented artist has won kudos for acting, as well as composing film scores. His work includes Sounder; Sounder, Part 2; Scott Joplin - King of Ragtime; and Wynton Marsalis' Pulitzer Prize-winning epic, Rosewood. Taj Mahal also wrote the Grammy-nominated score for the Broadway production Mule Bone, based on a play by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

This fall, in celebration of the 2003 Year of the Blues, Taj aligns his talent with director Martin Scorsese in From Mali to Mississippi, the first in the seven-part PBS series, THE BLUES (segments of which will be shown in the Festival's Reel Blues presentation on the A&E Front Porch Stage, July 3).

Taj Mahal's appearance July 3 is sponsored by Co-Op Network.