Taj Mahal on Resurrecting a Lost Bill Withers Song as Title Track of New Album, ‘Time,’ More Than 60 Releases Into His Career: ‘I’m in It for the Duration’ (EXCLUSIVE)
The title of Taj Mahal‘s just-announced album, due out May 1, is “Time,” a simple concept that the blues-folk-soul-reggae artist is better equipped to address than most musicians, in part because of just how much of it he’s got under his belt.
“It’s an ongoing freight train, my career,” the 84-year-old singer-guitarist tells Variety. “The type of musician I am, it harks back to the 10th, 11th, 12th century, where you are part of a musical clan and you come onto the planet and do your job with these gifts you’ve been given. I’ve been playing music probably about 76, 77 years, at this particular point.” He notes that the Phantom Blues Band, which backs him on the new album, “has been really amazing. We’ve now ended our 30th year playing together.” And his legacy extends to “north of 60 albums,” by his count.
With no less joy in doing it, he affirms: “I’m here for the duration.”
The title track of “Time,” issued to DSPs Friday as a preview of the forthcoming album, was written by another musical hero, the late Bill Withers, but never recorded by him. (Listen to and watch a visualizer for the number, below.) Its discovery dates back to around 2010, when Mahal first began work on this album — it’s a long story — and record executive Steve Berkowitz, who had worked with Withers, brought the unreleased Withers composition to his camp’s attention. Mahal took to it but made sure he had the blessing of Withers’ widow to proceed with putting it out after the soul great died in 2020.
“We got a magic wand with the song ‘Time’ from Bill Withers,” Mahal says. “It’s a fantastic song, something that nobody’s ever heard before. We gave his wife the opportunity to have the nod to see if she liked what we did with it, and she gave us the go-ahead. I think it’s timely,” he notes, no pun intended. “I’m always putting out stuff that I think people could use, and that’s the way I am about the music.” (The “Time” album can be pre-ordered or pre-saved here.)
Mahal only met Withers on a couple of occasions — their wives had gone to Claremont College together, which offered a bit of a connection — and he came away from those even more of an admirer. “When we did get to talk with one another, it was like we could see each other across the universe, and we just pulled all that distance out of the way. He was real folks. And I’ve always admired his work, his concerts, the musicians that he played with, his ideas. All you have to do is hear one note and you already know who you’re listening to, you know? … Once he walked away from the business, that’s when I met him the second time. I think he was in New York, putting up some shelves for his daughter at college, and he was just Bill Withers in overalls.”
For as many ways as Mahal and Withers might have been simpatico, it’s hard to imagine them being more different in how they handled the later parts of their careers … or a non-career, in Withers’ case, as he famously just stopped recording after the mid-1980s, going the last 35 years of his life without ever releasing another new record. Clearly, that would not be the life for Mahal.
“But I understand why he quit, because from where he came from,” in more of a hit-expectant genre, Mahal says, “they were telling him what to do. He was like, ‘No, I’m not gonna do that.’ He held onto his publishing and all this different stuff, so he could walk. And with me… you know, I’m in my own lane. It’s a different dynamic. I’m not about the music business; the music business is about me. I came here to do what I’m doing. And my directive is like, if you get the gift, you keep giving the gift. So that’s where I am. But I do understand where he was at, because he was at another level inside the business, and I’m not at that at all. I wish I could have talked to him more about it at the time, but I understand what it was. Bill was ta man’s man. I mean, you only got one chance to insult him. They came at him saying that he should change up the music and do this and that and he said, ‘This is what I hear. This is what I do. If that ain’t good enough, I’m outta here.’ Boom, he’s gone. I don’t blame him…
“With me, I recognized that the industry wasn’t gonna give me any help,” he continues. “So I just said, ‘Well, hey, it’s a gift, and it’s a creative gift, so I’m going to do my job.’ And that’s all I’ve been doing, man. Every time it gets to some kind of thing where it blows up to where people know that I’m doing stuff, then all of a sudden they find all this stuff they never heard before. You know, I’ve got north of 60 albums —soundtracks, children’s music, everything. Now it’s like a painter: there may be something that people fall into and really like, and they don’t know every painting that guy or that woman has painted, and hopefully, they’ll find it. Look at Van Gogh — how many years…? He was long down the line, and then they finally go, ‘Oh my God.’ When you’re living on that level with people, that’s what happens. Me, I’m down the road, I know what I’m doing.”
There is a melange of styles on the “Time” album, just as there is when you attend a Mahal concert today, and it’s far from limited to just the blues… although he does talk in terms that suggest he will always continue to have that as a prioritization.
“Basically, here’s the philosophy that I have,” he says. “Jazz gives you back your mind. Okay? And reggae gives you back your body. But the blues… blues will give you back your soul. I’m working off of that, you know? And so when you listen to this album, you can hear where we’re coming from. We’ve got a little bit of feel for this or that, but it’s all aimed directly at the heart and the soul.” He pauses, not wanting to leave out the other part of the equation. “There’s plenty of mind in there, too. We’ve got some jazz tendencies,” he chuckles.
Ziggy Marley is a featured guest on the “Time” album, joining Mahal for “Talkin’ Blues.” As the elder singer notes, it’s not their first collaboration.
“Ziggy came in on ‘Black Man, Brown Man’ in 2008. I’m very good friends with the Marley family,” Mahal says, noting there are some common roots. “My father was Caribbean and his family immigrated to the United States in 1902, and my mother was from South Carolina. And then my father passed when I was a youngster and my mother remarried and my stepfather was Jamaican. So we’ve had connections to Africa and Jamaica all along. All our life, we were growing (with the influence of) the Caribbean and Central America and South America, so it’s just seeing it in a bigger space, used in a bigger space.”
He doesn’t draw clear delineations between these influences or styles. “I go back to the fact that the movement of Sub-Saharan people into the western world has completely changed the music on the planet. So I’m not coming from everything being different. I’m coming from where everything is emanating from — you know, where the fountain comes out. To my ear it doesn’t seem like it’s all that different. I’m looking at music in general as just an arc, and you’ll never hear it all and can never play it all. So if it hits me in the soul spot, wherever it’s coming from, I’m excited.”
Although he would not be the type to characterize anything as a victory lap, he’s had quite a few of those lately. In February, there was a tribute concert in his honor in San Francisco that featured famous friends and admirers including Van Morrison, Hozier, Joan Baez, George Thorogood, Narada Michael Walden, Ruby Amanfu, Steven Van Zandt, Trombone Shorty and many others.
Symbolically, though, nothing could beat the twin ways in which the Recording Academy acknowledged him in 2025, when he won both a lifetime achievement Grammy and an actual competitive Grammy (for best traditional blues album for a record he made with Keb Mo), showing that it is possible to get your seemingly career-capping flowers and still be acknowledged as active and currently creative at the same time.
“I was thrilled; to be acknowledged like that was wonderful,” Mahal says of getting so much Grammy love at once. “I had my daughters with me, which, every time I go out I usually have family with me now. They’re doing their lives, but it is really good for them to be able to feel some of that light that comes to me to come back to them.”
He also recently went out on a co-headlining tour with Patty Griffith and was happy to share the spotlight and the love.
“You know, I’m not putting the dog and pony show,” he says. “You know, if an artist before me gets a wonderful standing ovation, the better the night, you know? The night opens up; it becomes generous. And that’s a lot of what we don’t have now. People put the music down and then get surrounded by the gatekeepers and the watchers and the bean counters and then it’s a different experience. When you come to my show, I reach for spirit and say, ‘Hey, here we are.’ And I don’t mean ‘we,’ the band on stage, and ‘you,’ the audience. I mean, here we are, humanity, with another opportunity to exalt.
“I think that we as humanity are exceptional beings who don’t really use the magic that we’re given. We have a tremendous amount of gifts, and I think at this particular time, rather than fall into sadness, you have to start honing those gifts and find the music that’ll transport you.”
“Time” track list:
Taj Mahal tour dates:Apr. 9 Thu – Fort Lauderdale, FL – The ParkerApr. 10 – St. Petersberg, FL – Tampa Bay Blues FestivalApr. 12 Sun – Jacksonville, FL – Florida TheaterApr. 13 Mon – Charleston, SC – Charleston Music HallApr. 14 Tue – Wilmington, NC – The Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community CollegeApr. 16 Thu – Atlanta, GA – Variety PlayhouseApr. 17 Fri – Knoxville, TN – Bijou TheaterApr. 18 Sat – Newberry, SC – Newberry Opera HouseApr. 20 Mon – Decatur, AL – The Princess Center for Performing ArtsApr. 21 Tue – Cleveland, MS – Bologna Performing Arts CenterApr. 23 – Miramar Beach, FL – Sun Sand and Soul FestivalJuly 7 – Buffalo, NY – Asbury Hall at BabevilleJuly 8 – Cleveland, OH – Music Box Supper Club – Concert HallJuly 10 – Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music TheatreJuly 11 – Munhall, PA – Carnegie of Homestead Music HallJuly 12 – Alexandria, VA – The BirchmereJuly 14 – Troy, NY – Troy Savings Bank Music HallJuly 15 – Northampton, MA – Academy of MusicJuly 17 – Wilmington, DE – The Grand Opera House
“It’s an ongoing freight train, my career,” the 84-year-old singer-guitarist tells Variety. “The type of musician I am, it harks back to the 10th, 11th, 12th century, where you are part of a musical clan and you come onto the planet and do your job with these gifts you’ve been given. I’ve been playing music probably about 76, 77 years, at this particular point.” He notes that the Phantom Blues Band, which backs him on the new album, “has been really amazing. We’ve now ended our 30th year playing together.” And his legacy extends to “north of 60 albums,” by his count.
With no less joy in doing it, he affirms: “I’m here for the duration.”
The title track of “Time,” issued to DSPs Friday as a preview of the forthcoming album, was written by another musical hero, the late Bill Withers, but never recorded by him. (Listen to and watch a visualizer for the number, below.) Its discovery dates back to around 2010, when Mahal first began work on this album — it’s a long story — and record executive Steve Berkowitz, who had worked with Withers, brought the unreleased Withers composition to his camp’s attention. Mahal took to it but made sure he had the blessing of Withers’ widow to proceed with putting it out after the soul great died in 2020.
“We got a magic wand with the song ‘Time’ from Bill Withers,” Mahal says. “It’s a fantastic song, something that nobody’s ever heard before. We gave his wife the opportunity to have the nod to see if she liked what we did with it, and she gave us the go-ahead. I think it’s timely,” he notes, no pun intended. “I’m always putting out stuff that I think people could use, and that’s the way I am about the music.” (The “Time” album can be pre-ordered or pre-saved here.)
Mahal only met Withers on a couple of occasions — their wives had gone to Claremont College together, which offered a bit of a connection — and he came away from those even more of an admirer. “When we did get to talk with one another, it was like we could see each other across the universe, and we just pulled all that distance out of the way. He was real folks. And I’ve always admired his work, his concerts, the musicians that he played with, his ideas. All you have to do is hear one note and you already know who you’re listening to, you know? … Once he walked away from the business, that’s when I met him the second time. I think he was in New York, putting up some shelves for his daughter at college, and he was just Bill Withers in overalls.”
For as many ways as Mahal and Withers might have been simpatico, it’s hard to imagine them being more different in how they handled the later parts of their careers … or a non-career, in Withers’ case, as he famously just stopped recording after the mid-1980s, going the last 35 years of his life without ever releasing another new record. Clearly, that would not be the life for Mahal.
“But I understand why he quit, because from where he came from,” in more of a hit-expectant genre, Mahal says, “they were telling him what to do. He was like, ‘No, I’m not gonna do that.’ He held onto his publishing and all this different stuff, so he could walk. And with me… you know, I’m in my own lane. It’s a different dynamic. I’m not about the music business; the music business is about me. I came here to do what I’m doing. And my directive is like, if you get the gift, you keep giving the gift. So that’s where I am. But I do understand where he was at, because he was at another level inside the business, and I’m not at that at all. I wish I could have talked to him more about it at the time, but I understand what it was. Bill was ta man’s man. I mean, you only got one chance to insult him. They came at him saying that he should change up the music and do this and that and he said, ‘This is what I hear. This is what I do. If that ain’t good enough, I’m outta here.’ Boom, he’s gone. I don’t blame him…
“With me, I recognized that the industry wasn’t gonna give me any help,” he continues. “So I just said, ‘Well, hey, it’s a gift, and it’s a creative gift, so I’m going to do my job.’ And that’s all I’ve been doing, man. Every time it gets to some kind of thing where it blows up to where people know that I’m doing stuff, then all of a sudden they find all this stuff they never heard before. You know, I’ve got north of 60 albums —soundtracks, children’s music, everything. Now it’s like a painter: there may be something that people fall into and really like, and they don’t know every painting that guy or that woman has painted, and hopefully, they’ll find it. Look at Van Gogh — how many years…? He was long down the line, and then they finally go, ‘Oh my God.’ When you’re living on that level with people, that’s what happens. Me, I’m down the road, I know what I’m doing.”
There is a melange of styles on the “Time” album, just as there is when you attend a Mahal concert today, and it’s far from limited to just the blues… although he does talk in terms that suggest he will always continue to have that as a prioritization.
“Basically, here’s the philosophy that I have,” he says. “Jazz gives you back your mind. Okay? And reggae gives you back your body. But the blues… blues will give you back your soul. I’m working off of that, you know? And so when you listen to this album, you can hear where we’re coming from. We’ve got a little bit of feel for this or that, but it’s all aimed directly at the heart and the soul.” He pauses, not wanting to leave out the other part of the equation. “There’s plenty of mind in there, too. We’ve got some jazz tendencies,” he chuckles.
Ziggy Marley is a featured guest on the “Time” album, joining Mahal for “Talkin’ Blues.” As the elder singer notes, it’s not their first collaboration.
“Ziggy came in on ‘Black Man, Brown Man’ in 2008. I’m very good friends with the Marley family,” Mahal says, noting there are some common roots. “My father was Caribbean and his family immigrated to the United States in 1902, and my mother was from South Carolina. And then my father passed when I was a youngster and my mother remarried and my stepfather was Jamaican. So we’ve had connections to Africa and Jamaica all along. All our life, we were growing (with the influence of) the Caribbean and Central America and South America, so it’s just seeing it in a bigger space, used in a bigger space.”
He doesn’t draw clear delineations between these influences or styles. “I go back to the fact that the movement of Sub-Saharan people into the western world has completely changed the music on the planet. So I’m not coming from everything being different. I’m coming from where everything is emanating from — you know, where the fountain comes out. To my ear it doesn’t seem like it’s all that different. I’m looking at music in general as just an arc, and you’ll never hear it all and can never play it all. So if it hits me in the soul spot, wherever it’s coming from, I’m excited.”
Although he would not be the type to characterize anything as a victory lap, he’s had quite a few of those lately. In February, there was a tribute concert in his honor in San Francisco that featured famous friends and admirers including Van Morrison, Hozier, Joan Baez, George Thorogood, Narada Michael Walden, Ruby Amanfu, Steven Van Zandt, Trombone Shorty and many others.
Symbolically, though, nothing could beat the twin ways in which the Recording Academy acknowledged him in 2025, when he won both a lifetime achievement Grammy and an actual competitive Grammy (for best traditional blues album for a record he made with Keb Mo), showing that it is possible to get your seemingly career-capping flowers and still be acknowledged as active and currently creative at the same time.
“I was thrilled; to be acknowledged like that was wonderful,” Mahal says of getting so much Grammy love at once. “I had my daughters with me, which, every time I go out I usually have family with me now. They’re doing their lives, but it is really good for them to be able to feel some of that light that comes to me to come back to them.”
He also recently went out on a co-headlining tour with Patty Griffith and was happy to share the spotlight and the love.
“You know, I’m not putting the dog and pony show,” he says. “You know, if an artist before me gets a wonderful standing ovation, the better the night, you know? The night opens up; it becomes generous. And that’s a lot of what we don’t have now. People put the music down and then get surrounded by the gatekeepers and the watchers and the bean counters and then it’s a different experience. When you come to my show, I reach for spirit and say, ‘Hey, here we are.’ And I don’t mean ‘we,’ the band on stage, and ‘you,’ the audience. I mean, here we are, humanity, with another opportunity to exalt.
“I think that we as humanity are exceptional beings who don’t really use the magic that we’re given. We have a tremendous amount of gifts, and I think at this particular time, rather than fall into sadness, you have to start honing those gifts and find the music that’ll transport you.”
“Time” track list:
Taj Mahal tour dates:Apr. 9 Thu – Fort Lauderdale, FL – The ParkerApr. 10 – St. Petersberg, FL – Tampa Bay Blues FestivalApr. 12 Sun – Jacksonville, FL – Florida TheaterApr. 13 Mon – Charleston, SC – Charleston Music HallApr. 14 Tue – Wilmington, NC – The Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community CollegeApr. 16 Thu – Atlanta, GA – Variety PlayhouseApr. 17 Fri – Knoxville, TN – Bijou TheaterApr. 18 Sat – Newberry, SC – Newberry Opera HouseApr. 20 Mon – Decatur, AL – The Princess Center for Performing ArtsApr. 21 Tue – Cleveland, MS – Bologna Performing Arts CenterApr. 23 – Miramar Beach, FL – Sun Sand and Soul FestivalJuly 7 – Buffalo, NY – Asbury Hall at BabevilleJuly 8 – Cleveland, OH – Music Box Supper Club – Concert HallJuly 10 – Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music TheatreJuly 11 – Munhall, PA – Carnegie of Homestead Music HallJuly 12 – Alexandria, VA – The BirchmereJuly 14 – Troy, NY – Troy Savings Bank Music HallJuly 15 – Northampton, MA – Academy of MusicJuly 17 – Wilmington, DE – The Grand Opera House