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Taj Mahal: Local blues legend

Two-time Grammy Award winning blues musician Taj Mahal tuned his Eastman guitar before giving the item to the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum staff. Reminder Publications photo by Katelyn Gendron
By Katelyn Gendron

Reminder Assistant Editor



SPRINGFIELD Last Tuesday, award-winning blues musician Taj Mahal (born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks) walked into the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum with his guitar case in one hand, a hat and plastic grocery bags in the other.

Carefully wrapped inside the bags were two Grammy Awards he'd received in 1997 and 2000 for Best Contemporary Blues Album for "Se or Blues" and "Shoutin' In Key," respectively.

His Grammy Awards, Eastman guitar and a hat were the final pieces to be included in the museum's latest exhibition titled, "Blues in Our Blood: The Artistic Evolution of Taj Mahal and Carole Fredericks."

Raised in Springfield during the 1950s and '60s, Mahal and Fredericks took their family's diverse Southern and West Indian cultural influences and fashioned them into their own infusions of jazz, blues and pop records.

After establishing herself as a background singer for musicians such as Eric Clapton and Elton John, Fredericks solidified her solo career during the mid-1990s while living in France. Her first album, titled "Springfield," was later followed up by "Couleurs et Parfums" in 1999.

A song on her second album titled, "J'ai le sang blues" ("I have blues in my blood") was the inspiration for the exhibitions title, according to museum officials.

"We're here to make sure people know she was doin' it," Mahal said enthusiastically as he looked through the exhibit room solely dedicated to his sister. Hung on the walls of the museum are photographs of Fredericks, clothing, album covers, photo albums and other memorabilia. A looped DVD compilation of her various performances also plays in the room.

"She was an incredible musician," Mahal said, adding that the power and command of her voice continuously astounded him.

Fredericks died of a heart attack in Dakar, Senegal, in 2001.

While looking through the exhibition room dedicated to his work, Mahal and his brother Richard "Seabreeze" Fredericks paused to look at a photo of Mahal during a 1960s Taj Mahal & the Elektras performance. Mahal said the image was "a blast from the past," as he looked at himself wearing Richard's sparkly, over-the-top jacket for the performance.

Taj Mahal & the Elektras was formed during his years attending the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he graduated with a degree in 1964. In 2006 the university granted him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree for his work. That same year, then-Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney declared Mahal the Official Blues Musician of the Commonwealth.

"I wasn't joking. I was really trying to play some great music," Mahal said of his college years performing with Taj Mahal & the Elektras.

His exhibition room displays multiple images from his youth through the present day. Album covers and a looped DVD of his performances accompany the images.

Mahal called the exhibit a visual representation of the "incredible music that has propelled all of us through our lives."

He said his achievements and music are all a part of a bigger picture one that Mahal said he never realized would "touch people all over the world."

"This is a nostalgic walk through our life," Richard said of the exhibition, noting the family tree that appears in the museum's hallway. "To see this happening in my hometown . I'm honored to see what Springfield is doing for our family."

Guy McLain, museum director, said the exhibition is a celebration of the legacy of a typical 20th century Springfield family whose members rose to achieve critical acclaim.

"We're just ordinary people," Connie Fredericks-Malone, Mahal's sister, co-curator of the exhibition and director of the Carole Fredericks Foundation, said. "As a nation I think we have the opportunity to take stock in who we are and what we can contribute."

She explained that she worked with museum staff for over one year in order to create the exhibition. "To see it up is overwhelming," she said.

The exhibit running through Nov. 9 can be viewed during museum hours, Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and college students and $5 for children ages three to 17.

For more information|about the exhibit go to www.springfieldmuseums.org.

For more information about Taj Mahal visit his Web site at www.tajblues.com.

For more information about Carole Fredericks go to www.carolefredericks

foundation.org.