THE NATCH`L BLUES (Full Album) - TAJ MAHAL - 1969.

 

   

THE NATCH`L BLUES (Full Album) - TAJ MAHAL - 1969.

       

    

 

Side One.
1. Good Morning Miss Brown
2. Corinna
3. I Ain`t Gonna Let Nobody Steal My Jellyroll
4. Going Up To The Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue
5. Done Changed My Way Of Living

Side Two.
1. She Caught The Katy And Left Me A Mule To Ride
2. The Cuckoo
3. You Don`t Miss Your Water
4. A Lot Of Love

Personnel:
Taj Mahal - Harp (harmonica) and Miss "National", Steel-bodied guitar , Vocals
Jesse Edwin Davis - Guitar, Piano and Bass arrangements
Gary Gilmore - Bass
Chuck Blackwell - Drums (also)
Al Kooper - Piano
Earl Palmer - Drums

Engineering: Sy Mitchell
Producer: David Robinson
Label: Direction
Released: 1968

Back sleeve notes:
"This album is the music of four musical men and their musical friends (close friends), some of whom do not use musical instruments to make their song. Men who love one another, men who are always in love with lovely ladies, children, dogs, cats; with Old Ma Nature at her best and at her worst, men who can still laugh and cry, men who have paid their dues to the unknown cashier, men who can accept their own mistakes and the mistakes of others. It`s all living, you know. Be well."
TAJ MAHAL.

"We return to you, O earth, the things which you have given us willingly and most graciously; with our hearts, hands and minds, in the best way we know how."
TAJ MAHAL.

Tuesday afternoon
old world over a vegetarian salad
and Euphrates cookies for Aya
and cheese for Stella Mae

"I`m goin to the river goin to sit down on the ground
 I`m goin to the river goin to sit down on the ground
And let the waves of water wash my troubles down"
Mississippi Fred McDowell.

"What`s the matter, Willie?" (From real taped interview with Blind Willie McTell).
(Interviewer): "Do you have any songs that talk of colored people having hard times in the South and their mistreatment by the whites?"
(Blind singer...buck dancing): "Well no sir, I don`t at the present time. The white peoples has been very good to the southern peoples....as far as I know."
(Interviewer questioning so): "You mean you don`t have any complaining songs?"
(Blind singer, very uneasy): "I have a spiritual called "It`s a Mean World to Live In", but that still don`t have reference to the hard times."
(Interviewer, proddingly): "Why is it a mean world...Willie?"
(Blind singer, catching a mental breath): "Well sir, it`s not altogether!"
(Interviewer, determinedly): "You mean it`s as mean for the blacks as it is for the whites?"
(Blind singer, thankful he`s been let off the hook): "That`s the idea!"

(Hard times, "altogether" or "all together" and "that`s the idea" are the obvious clues - this was 1940 in Georgia. - T.M.)