The Flying Burrito Brothers

Sin City

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal was born Henry St. Claire Fredericks in Harlem on May 17, 1942. Taj grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father, a jazz pianist/composer/arranger of Caribbean descent, and his mother, a gospel-singing schoolteacher from South Carolina, encouraged their children to respect and be proud of their roots.

His parents started him on classical piano lessons, but after two weeks, he says, "it was already clear I had my own concept of how I wanted to play." The lessons stopped, but Taj didn't. In addition to piano, the young musician learned to play the clarinet, trombone and harmonica, and he loved to sing. He discovered his step-father’s guitar and became serious about it in his early teens.

While attending the University as an agriculture student in the early 1960s, the musician transformed himself into Taj Mahal, an idea that came to him in a dream. He began playing with the popular U. Mass. party band The Elektras, then left Massachusetts in 1964 for the blues-heavy L. A. club scene. There he formed The Rising Sons with Ry Cooder.

Taj also had the opportunity to hear, meet, and play with such blues legends as Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Louis and Dave Meyers, Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachel, Lightin' Hopkins and Bessie Jones. While Taj's music has always been well received, popular culture finally caught up to him the '90s and 2000s. Taj walked away with the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album for 1997's Señor Blues and again for 2000's Shoutin' in Key. He has garnered nine Grammy nominations in all. MP3: Statesboro Blues

Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite was born January 31, 1944 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. He is an American blues-harp player and bandleader, one of the non-African-American bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield.

He has said that he is of Choctaw descent, and he was born in a region originally inhabited by the Choctaw. However, in a 2005 interview, he said his mother had told him he was actually Cherokee.

At the age of three, Musselwhite moved to Memphis, Tennessee. When he was a teenager, Memphis experienced the period when rockabilly, western swing, electric blues, and some forms of African American music were combining to give birth to rock and roll. The period featured legendary figures such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash. This environment was Musselwhite's school for music as well as life, and he acquired the nickname "Memphis Charlie".

In true bluesman fashion, Musselwhite then took off in search of the rumored "big-paying factory jobs" up the "Hillbilly Highway", legendary Highway 51 to Chicago, where he continued his education on the South Side, making the acquaintance of even more legends including Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Big Walter Horton. In time, Musselwhite led his own blues band, and has released over 20 albums.

Musselwhite believes the key to his musical success was finding a style where he could express himself. He has said, "I only know one tune, and I play it faster or slower, or I change the key, but it’s just the one tune I’ve ever played in my life. It’s all I know." MP3: Hey Miss Bessie