PORT TOWNSEND — Centrum’s yearly Acoustic Blues Festival, always a special event for aspiring and accomplished blues musicians, was kicked into another realm this year with a whirlwind visit from Taj Mahal, the veteran singer of the blues world.
Mahal, 69, played a sold-out show Wednesday night in McCurdy Pavilion, leading a trio through an overview of his 40-year recording and performing career.
While the festival always gets a high-class headliner, Mahal’s appearance was an extra treat made even more unusual with a one-hour “workshop” where he sat onstage in the 200-seat Wheeler Theater in front of a few hundred people and chatted about music, life and philosophy as if he were sitting on the back porch.
The other guy on this particular porch was Corey Harris, Centrum’s artistic director for blues, who pointed Mahal toward topics and let it rip.
“It is important that musicians engage themselves in their community,” Mahal said.
“We need to see ourselves as part of the world and not think that the world revolves around us.”
Mahal defies categorization. He is usually presented as a blues artist but regularly injects other stylistic elements into his recordings and performances.
He said musicians need to stay connected with all the sounds happening around them.
For this, he provided two polar examples:
Blues legend Robert Johnson, who died in 1938 at the age of 27 — whose centenary is being observed this year — was plugged into all the contemporary sources of the 1920s, which he used as influences on his music.
And Mahal was probably the only Lady Gaga fan in the room.
“She can play piano,” he said.
“And she’s figured out how to make money in a recession.”
Mahal began recording in the 1960s when he played a lot of electric guitar but now presents a more organic sound using acoustic guitars and various instruments from around the world.
“The 1960s was good to me because it was when what I wanted to do and what was going on sort of collided,” he said.
At the time, he got to meet a lot of his idols, sharing stages and stories in much the same way that budding blues musicians may one day recall Wednesday’s workshop.
His music is nearly technology-free, but he has an appreciation for how the online world can spread musical ideas.
“We do need to put some energy into making sure that music is available,” he said.
“The Internet has done a wonderful job in making people aware of what is out there, but it needs a conductor so people know where to go.”
Technology has decreased the attention span of listeners and the time they spend with specific pieces of music.
“In the old days, people would live with a record for years until the grooves were worn off,” he said
“Ask Keith Richards, he and Mick would listen to the same records over and over and learn everything on there.”
Mahal said people shouldn’t believe the stereotype that blues musicians are unintelligent because of the music’s simplicity.
“A lot of times, musicians are playing for a lot of people who aren’t highly educated, so they can’t give them a 90-dollar word every time you turn around.
“But when they come forward and talk to you, you’d be surprised about all the things they know.”
Mahal performed a number of solo shows at Centrum in the 1990s, but this was his first appearance at the Blues Festival, which began Sunday and extends through next Sunday.
In the past, the festival headliner has played Saturday night, but Mahal’s schedule necessitated a midweek performance.
His appearance signals the midpoint of the festival, between the workshops and learning sessions attended only by the festival participants and the more public, open weekend fare.
This includes two nights of “Blues in the Clubs” on Friday and Saturday in which performers will fill seven locations in downtown Port Townsend, providing a varied lineup of one-of-a-kind jams.
For $25 a night, people can wander in and out of The Undertown, The Upstage, the Boiler Room, The Public House, Sirens, Key City Public Theatre and the Cotton Club to hear the music.
All of these venues except the Cotton Club will be familiar to Port Townsend natives and visitors. The new venue is the Cotton Building, 607 Water St., which is one of the highlights of the new Civic District renovation.
On Saturday, the 20th annual Down-Home Country Blues Fest will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the McCurdy Pavilion, featuring a lineup that includes guitar/piano prodigy Jerron Paxton, singer Guy Davis — the son of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee — and trance-blues guitarist Otis Taylor.
Also featured is Chicago piano player Erwin Helfer, West Virginia songwriter Nat Reese, and lap-slide player Pura Fe.
Tickets range from $18 to $33, with 18 and younger admitted free.
For tickets and information, phone 800-746-1982 or visit www.centrum.org.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.