There are few acts from whom we’ve enjoyed hearing more in the past decades than 1) the great Taj Mahal and 2) The Phantom Blues Band, a group with which Mahal is very familiar, having in fact assembled them as his own band in 1993. After making three records and a concert DVD with Taj–including two Grammy Award winners in Señor Blues and Shoutin’ in Key–along with various of its members also being featured on one or two other albums from Taj’s catalog, The Phantom Blues Band continued on and have recorded some pretty terrific albums of their own since their last offering with Taj in the early 2000s, occasionally reuniting with Taj during those years to record a single or two for other projects.
It may have taken two decades for Taj and the band to record another full album together, but this latest pairing of Mahal with the Phantom Blues Band–Time (on Taj’s own Resonatin’ Records label in conjunction with Thirty Tigers)–seems to pick right back up where these old friends left off and is every bit as entertaining as what we heard from them back around the turn of the millennium.
In the album’s liner notes, Ruthie Foster observes: “This band doesn’t ‘back’ anybody. They lift you up, carry you, and dare you to rise higher.” Indeed, even with Taj Mahal now recognized among the musical wonders of the world, it’s clear that the musicians around him are very much his equals when the tape is rolling, with each allowed ample room to stretch out and add their own special touches, only helping to make Mahal sound that much better.
Making up the band are Johnny Lee Schell on guitar, Larry Fulcher on bass, Tony Braunagel on drums (with Fulcher and Braunagel also having produced the album), and Joe Sublett, Lester Lovitt, and Darrell Leonard on horns. With Phantom’s longtime keyboardist Mike Finnigan having lost his fight to cancer five years ago this August, piano and organ duties here are shared by the two familiar faces of Jon Cleary and Mick Weaver, respectively, both of whom preceded Finnigan in those roles during the band’s early years.
Titled after the slow, Bill Withers-penned and Cleary-arranged track “Time”, which previously existed only as an unrecorded demo until it was offered to the band to record here (with Cleary also contributing acoustic and electric guitar, percussion, and backing vocals in addition to piano on the song), the album features much in the way of island and other world sounds, from the flowing “Life of Love” that opens the project and breezy “Wild About My Lovin'” that follows–with Mahal on harmonica as well as lead vocals, and Schell joining on harmony vocals on the nearly 100-year-old song that the band still makes sound vibrant and fresh–to the reggae “Talkin’ Blues” (Bob Marley) featuring Ziggy Marley on guest vocals.
A grooving “You Put the Whammy on Me” that brings in Lenny Castro on percussion helps to finish out the first half of the album’s 10 songs and leads to one of the best album B-sides you’ll ever hear: after kicking off on the aforementioned “Talkin’ Blues”, the band swings into the hard-edged soul of “Sweet Lorene” (co-written by Isaac Hayes and Otis Redding) that proves that Taj can still do some pretty good shoutin’ and then immediately softens things up with a jazzy, crawling cover of “Ask Me ‘Bout Nothing (But the Blues)” (Bobby “Blue” Bland), including a Bland-like croak as the song fades. A smoking “It’s Your Voodoo Working” with Schell, Fulcher and Cleary on backing vocals provides the opportunity for Taj to sneak in some Wolfman Jack-style vocals, with the album closing on a swaying “Rowdy Blues” (Kid Bailey) featuring ukulele from Taj and mandolin from Cleary in addition to his usual superb piano.
Whatever else you may have on your schedule for this week, do yourself a favor and be sure to make time to check this one out!