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Great cd although the added tracks interrupted the flow of the original cd. Honestly, that track is the whole reason I bought the cd and was very disappointed in the false advertising. My biggest beef is that it says "original Recordings Remastered", which holds true for all of the original tracks except for "Farther On Down The Road" which is NOT the same as the original on "The Best Of". The backup vocals."spidoo-spidee" are not on this version and it's not as funky either. Who is to blame for this. If anyone knows where to get the original version please let me know.
. a collection to complement this.this album covers TJ's late 60s and early 70s - this is as musical as blues can get. imo taj mahal is first a musician then a bluesman - there's a difference, you know.now how about another collection (maybe double disk) to complement this collection - which covers his later 70s and 80s and 90s.
He never lets us down. These old favorites are blues at the roots. Taj Mahal is one of the great blues men.
I finally broke down and dropped twelve bucks on this CD, even though I already had The Essential Taj Mahal, which contains nearly all the tracks on this one. He was making good music all the way into the 90's, including some very cool Hawaiian-flavored blues stuff; but The Best Of does not include anything past 1974. And the Real Thing was recorded with a horn section, so the songs do sound plenty different from the studio versions.Another song that's worthy of mention is "Frankie & Albert," about a woman who shoots her cheating man.
(I want "Corinna" played at my wedding too, but I doubt I will be lucky enough to find a girl that lets me plan an all-Taj wedding soundtrack; that would be sweet, though). In Progress & In Motion has Taj's awesome version of the Mississippi John Hurt song "Stagger Lee" (also reworked into a reggae song by the Clash for London Calling), yet another song that is sadly missing from The Essential. The reason I did it was to get one single track, possibly my favorite song that he has ever recorded: "Farther On Down The Road." This song is so amazing, I plan to play it at my wedding.
I don't know about you, but I find that role reversal pretty refreshing, considering the million versions of "Hey Joe" that have been done.If you are new to Taj, I would recommend you start with this one rather than The Essential Taj Mahal; if you like what you hear, then later you can get either The Essential Taj Mahal or In Progress & In Motion (a great 3-CD compilation). In addition to "Farther On Down The Road," this CD trades two songs from Taj's best album (Giant Step/De Ole Folks At Home) for live versions of these same songs, from the excellent live album The Real Thing. The Essential Taj Mahal includes only the studio versions of these songs, so this CD is a nice complement to The Essential in that respect, especially since the two songs in question are two of his best and worth hearing in multiple versions.
Both of these multi-CD compilations do a much better job than The Best Of at covering Taj's later period. Bottom line: Start here, but *don't* stop here.
This man is a griot, a National Treasure. Taj Mahal exudes the essence of music. He could enthrall an audience with a comb and a piece of wax paper if he felt like it. This album effortlessly imparts an education in the background of the blues. One jewel of a song after another.
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