We’ve been fortunate to see bluesman Taj Mahal perform live several times over the last dozen years or so, each time as part of a different configuration, first as an acoustic duo with Keb’Mo’ at the 2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival and then with Keb again–this time backed by a band–four years later through their TajMo collaboration. In between those shows, we also caught him fronting his trio, and then, more recently, saw him lead the Taj Mahal Quartet at the 2023 Three Rivers Arts Festival. Each of these sets, of course, was excellent, so we were particularly excited about Taj again returning to the Pittsburgh area, seeing that he’d be joined by his accomplished, Grammy Award-winning band, the Phantom Blues Band (PBB), about whom regular readers of our blog know we’ve also had plenty of good things to say over the years, including this recent review of their new album with Mahal, Time.
We learned a few days prior to Saturday night’s show that Phantom drummer Tony Braunagel wouldn’t be making this date, and then noted when the band took the stage that their usual guitarist Johnny Lee Schell and horn players also weren’t performing this night, so, although we didn’t get the full genuine Phantom Blues Band experience (which just gives us a great reason to go see them again sometime), what we did get during the hour-and-a-half or so performance was still pretty terrific with Taj swapping out between guitar, harmonica, resonator and maraca throughout the evening and the experienced stand-ins on guitar (Josh Sklair), drums (Brannen Temple) and horns, along with Tony D on percussion, keeping up nicely with PBB bassist Larry Fulcher and keyboard/organist Jim Pugh.
There were, of course, a few songs from the new album, in the flowing “Wild About My Lovin'” and rhumba-flavored “You Put the Whammy on Me” (one of the songs on which Taj played maraca), as well as others from the band’s earlier projects with Taj, including the groovy, opening “Strut” and fiery-vocaled “Blues Ain’t Nothin'” from the Dancing the Blues album and the beautiful “Queen Bee” off Senor Blues.
In between, we heard plenty of other Taj classics, including “Chevrolet”, “E Z Rider”, “Statesboro Blues”, “Going Up to the Country, Paint My Mailbox Blue”, “Farther on Down the Road”, “Fishin’ Blues”, “She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride”, “Lovin’ in My Baby’s Eyes”, and an uptempo version of “Diving Duck Blues”, with several of the numbers–including “Chevrolet”, “She Caught the Katy” and “Farther on Down the Road”–giving us a chance to hear Mahal on harmonica in addition to the sturdy, at times growling, vocals he delivered throughout the program.
As great as all of that was, the highlight of the evening may have come about three-quarters of the way through, with a crawling “Here in the Dark” ( T-Bone Walker), a song Taj and the band covered on their Phantom Blues album, this one featuring a stinging solo from Sklair.
A few songs later, the band closed their performance (with assistance from the audience) on a swaying “Way Back Home” (The Crusaders, Junior Walker), leaving us, as Taj always seems to do, “satisfied ‘n’ tickled too” and hoping that he and his Phantom Blues Band can find their way back to us again sometime soon.