Summary: Ozark Highlands Radio is a weekly radio program that features live music and interviews recorded at Ozark Folk Center State Park’s beautiful 1,000-seat auditorium in Mountain View, Arkansas. In addition to the music, our “Feature Host” segments take listeners through the Ozark hills with historians, authors, and personalities who explore the people, stories, and history of the Ozark region. This week, world renowned three-time Grammy winning singer, songwriter, film composer, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, founding member of the band “Rising Sons,” and Blues legend Taj Mahal recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, Arkansas. Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr, better known as “Taj Mahal,” is an American blues musician, a singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments. Taj incorporates elements of world music into his works and has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music by fusing it with nontraditional forms including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, and the South Pacific. Accompanied here by bassist Bill Rich and drummer Kester Smith, Taj Mahal takes us on a musical journey like no other. Raised between two very different musical traditions, the American gospel of his mother and the Caribbean jazz influences of his father, Taj takes his music into unique and interesting territory. This journey has taken him around the world with a career spanning over five decades. In addition to being one of America’s greatest cultural treasures, Taj Mahal has garnered three Grammy Awards, a Blues Music Award, an honorary doctorate, and the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “What inspires me most about my career is that I’ve been able to make a living playing the music that I always loved and wanted to play since the early 50s,” Mahal says. “And the fact that I still am involved in enjoying an exciting career at this point in time is truly priceless. I’m doing this the old fashioned way and it ain’t easy. I work it and I earn it. My relationship with my audience has been fun, with great respect going both ways! I am extremely lucky to have fans who have listened to the music I choose to play and have stayed with me for 50 years. These fans have also introduced their children, grandchildren and in some cases great-grand children to this fabulous treasure of music that I am privileged to represent. It’s very exciting, to say the least. “Like ancient culture,” he adds, “the people are as much a part of the performance as the music. Live communication through music, oh yeah, it’s right up there with oxygen!” - http://www.tajblues.com In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, musician, educator and country music legacy Mark Jones offers a 1976 archival recording of another three time Grammy winner and Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, country folk icon John Prine performing his classic song “Paradise” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.
