Taj Mahal at the Museumsquartier in Vienna (Jazz-Fest Wien)

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks born May 17, 1942, who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician.
Born in Harlem, New York, Taj Mahal grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. His mother was the member of a local gospel choir and his father was a West Indian jazz arranger and piano player.
His family owned a shortwave radio which received music broadcasts from around the world, exposing him at an early age to world music
A self-taught singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, banjo and harmonica (among many other instruments), Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his almost 50 year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa and the South Pacific.
For some time Mahal thought of pursuing farming over music. He had developed a passion for farming that nearly rivaled his love of music—coming to work on a farm first at age 16. Despite having attended a vocational agriculture school,  and majoring in animal husbandry and minoring in veterinary science and agronomy, Mahal decided to take the route of music instead of farming
His stage name, came to him in dreams about Gandhi, India, and social tolerance. He started using it in 1959 or 1961—around the same time he began attending the University of Massachusetts.
n 1964 he moved to Santa Monica, California, and formed Rising Sons with fellow blues musician Ry Cooder and Jessie Lee Kincaid. The group was one of the first interracial bands of the period, which likely made them commercially unviable.
During his early career days Mahal worked with musicians like Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Muddy Waters. and The Rolling Stones, with whom he has performed at various times throughout his career.
In 1981 he decided to move to Hawaii and soon formed The Hula Blues Band.  This started a comeback of sorts for him, and in the 1990s he did collaborative works both with Eric Clapton and Etta James.
Taj Mahal has received nine nominations for Grammy Awards over his career winning twice… In 1997 he won Best Contemporary Blues Album for Señor Blues, followed by another Grammy in 2000 for Shoutin’ in Key

Source: Wikipedia