Taj Mahal (musician) Taj Mahal (musician) Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (born May 17, 1942), who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician, a self-taught singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, piano, banjo, and harmonica, among many other instruments. He often incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his almost 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific. Born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, Jr. on May 17, 1942, in Harlem,
Taj Mahal (musician) of his unique sound." According to "The Rough Guide to Rock", "It has been said that Taj Mahal was one of the first major artists, if not the very first one, to pursue the possibilities of world music. Even the blues he was playing in the early 70s – "Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff" (1972), "Mo' Roots" (1974) – showed an aptitude for spicing the mix with flavours that always kept him a yard or so distant from being an out-and-out blues performer." Concerning his voice, author David Evans writes that Mahal has "an extraordinary voice that ranges