Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy bring blues to life

Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy bring blues to life
September 5, 2010
By WILL HOBSON
The Daytona Beach News-Journal

DAYTONA BEACH -- Taj Mahal traded his harmonica for a guitar, took the microphone and addressed the sun-splashed and sweat-soaked audience at the Bandshell on Saturday afternoon.

"Let's play the blues, baby," he said, and with that his band kicked into "Annie Mae" while their frontman played solo licks and sang.

The 68-year-old Mahal, born Henry St. Claire Fredericks, opened Saturday's music at the Bandshell with a 3:30 p.m. concert, followed by fellow bluesman Buddy Guy. Huey Lewis, who played the nightcap, watched Mahal's set from the shade of the stage.

While Mahal, Guy and Lewis' names are linked with Usher and the Jonas Brothers as headlining acts of the inaugural American Music Festival, there probably isn't much overlap between their fans. The crowd at the Bandshell on Saturday trended older than those likely to see the boy band play the festival's finale show at the Ocean Center tonight at 7.

While Mahal and Guy were unable to fill the roughly 4,000-seat Bandshell, they did entertain those who braved the midafternoon heat.

"There's never a whole lot for us to come and see down here, so this is great," said Gayle Gordon, a Daytona Beach resident in shorts and a bikini top. Gordon and Russell Hill, 53, of Daytona Beach Shores spent most of the early part of Mahal's concert in the sun; Gordon swaying to the music while Hill clapped. Hill was also shirtless, and said he didn't mind the heat.

"We're beach people. We live on the beach. This is us," said Hill, his nose was smeared white with sunscreen.

Across the Bandshell, Grant Webb sat in the shade, leaning on his cane. Webb, 68, had shoulder-length white hair pouring out of a Bermuda hat and a long, white beard (whose age he estimated at 43 or 44). He looked like a department store Santa Claus in the offseason.

"This isn't the blues I once knew, the old Mississippi dirt blues," said Webb, who added that he met Mahal in the early 1970s, after a small show in Topanga Canyon, an area near Los Angeles.

"He's gained about 100, 125 pounds since then," Webb said with a laugh. "But then, so have I."

While happy with the music and turnout, Webb was a bit wistful for the sadder, more stripped-down blues he grew up with, the blues of John Lee Hooker, Sam "Lightnin" Hopkins, and a younger Taj Mahal.

"He could just come out here with a guitar, and I'd be just as happy. But these folks wouldn't," Webb said.

A few rows up, two women in sundresses danced and clapped along with the music.

"Ah, well," Webb said with a smile. "Some things have to change, I guess."