Every Sunday, my friend Denise Oliver Velez publishes a post at Daily Kos celebrating Black music. This week's edition is dedicated to Taj Mahal on his 84th birthday. She included a video of his recording of "Statesboro Blues," so I was inspired to take a look at the history of that song.
It was written and recorded by Blind Willie McTell back in 1928.
Forty years later, it was recorded by Taj Mahal. Pay close attention to the slide guitar, which was played by Native American Jesse Ed Davis.
When Duane Allman first heard that recording he decided to learn how to play slide guitar and became one of the best in history. "Statesborro Blues" was the opening number for the Allman Brothers' famous live recording at Fillmore East in 1971.
Here is Taj Mahal performing this number in 2014 at a concert honoring Gregg Allman. It features Jack Pearson on slide guitar and Chuck Leavell on keys.
As a member of the Allman Brothers Band from 1999-2014, Derek Trucks played this tune countless times. It is also part of the repertoire of the Tedeschi Trucks Band (ie, it was the first number Trucks played a few months ago on Jerry Garcia's "Tiger" guitar that had just sold for $11.5 million). I'll post this video, even though it isn't the best quality, because joining them on stage is a young guitarist known as "Taz," (Brandon Niederauer), who was 13 years old at the time.
Brandon NiederauerBrandon Niederauer
Taz is now 23 years old and doing his part to keep this 98 year-old blues tune alive.
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