Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home 1969

Today’s album (or albums) for reflection: ‘Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home’, a 1968 studio double album by American blues artist Taj Mahal. The first disc (Giant Step) is electric, while the second (De Ole Folks at Home) is acoustic. Available on Spotify.

I was into the blues at an early age, but I was quick to learn that there is blues and blues. Many, many kinds, and some I learned to love more than others. My early foraging was with old black American musicians, some of whom regularly ventured over to the UK where their music was more popular than in their native land: Howling Wolf, Champion Jack Dupree, Lightning Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, that ilk. And some British R&B bands in the 60s were covering their kind of music, in a tentative sort of way. The old-timers had the soul but were often pedestrian in their musical artistry; the young white Brits had on the whole better technical skills but failed to get under the skin of the genre.

In 1969 I was living in México D.F. studying at UNAM. I had a record player of sorts and half a dozen records; this was one of them. I heard it at a friend’s house and went straight out to Hip70 in the Zona Rosa and bought my own copy. I loved it then, and I love it now. The first album is ‘De Ole Folks At Home’, an acoustic solo set incorporating old-time steel-body slide fingerpicking, clawhammer banjo, raw harmonica, moans and body slapping. The set includes classic numbers as well as several originals. ‘Giant Step’ is electrified, with driving rhythms, downhome grooves and an occasional Cajun feel; funky and fun.

Taj Mahal was a stage name; his real name was Henry Saint Clair Fredericks. I saw him play in Buenos Aires In the 1990s as a warmup for ‘Master of the Telecaster’ Albert Collins. I wasn’t that impressed with Collins: loud and noisy, but not very subtle. The head-banging crowd loved him, but turned against Taj Mahal, who suffered a lot of unkind barracking. That Taj Mahal set was for me superb; first half acoustic guitar, second set on piano, as he took the audience through a whole range of blues genres. But they didn’t listen – they did not know how. Pearls before swine, I fear.

I have listened to this double album regularly over the years, and some tracks are still on my current playlists. He’s an accomplished musician, music scholar and musicologist and has recorded a wide variety of styles. And he’s won two Grammy Awards, so I can’t be his only admirer.

Track listing – ‘Giant Step’
Ain’t Gwine Whistle Dixie No More (Taj Mahal, Jesse Ed Davis, Gary Gilmore, Chuck Blackwell)
Take a Giant Step (Carole King, Gerry Goffin)
Give Your Woman What She Wants (Taj Mahal, Joel Hirschhorn)
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (Don Level, Bob Love)
You’re Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
Six Days on the Road (Carl Montgomery, Earl Green)
Farther on Down the Road (You Will Accompany Me) (Taj Mahal, Jesse Ed Davis, Gary Gilmore, Chuck Blackwell)
Keep Your Hands Off Her (Huddie Ledbetter)
Bacon Fat (Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson)

Track listing – ‘De Ole Folks at Home’
Linin’ Track (Huddie Ledbetter)
Country Blues No. 1 (Traditional; arranged by Taj Mahal)
Wild Ox Moan (Vera Hall, Ruby Pickens Tartt)
Light Rain Blues (Taj Mahal)
Little Soulful Tune (Taj Mahal)
Candy Man (Rev. Gary Davis)
Cluck Old Hen (Traditional; arranged by Taj Mahal)
Colored Aristocracy (Traditional; arranged by Taj Mahal)
Blind Boy Rag (Taj Mahal)
Stagger Lee (Harold Logan, Lloyd Price)
Cajun Tune (Taj Mahal)
Fishin’ Blues (Henry Thomas, Taj Mahal)
Annie’s Lover (Traditional; arranged by Taj Mahal)