Taj Mahal pleads guilty then lets the laughter roll. The San Francisco Bay Area resident who was raised in New England (Springfield, Mass.) has just been reminded of the observation that Blues Review magazine once made about his artistry: "Taj Mahal is among those chiefly responsible for establishing the blues as the world's music."

      Yes, Mahal admits, "I'm guilty," but he is quick to add that he is not the only one. "There's a lot of other people too. We tend to be in a bubble in the United States. It's happening all over Europe and Africa, around the world," says the legend, whose latest album is Essential, a greatest hits collection. He is pleased to be part of the worldwide blues movement.

      The 64-year-old artist sprung from the Boston folk scene of the 1960s. While an agriculture student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he played in the UMass party band, the Elektras. He said it was during that time that the idea to change his name from his birth name of Henry St. Claire Fredericks came to him in a dream.

      Moving to Los Angeles in 1964, he teamed with Ry Cooder to form the Rising Sons, a group that quickly dissolved.       Mahal recorded his first solo album in 1968 soon after playing a highly touted performance of the Banks/Parker hit "Ain't That a Lot of Love" on the Rolling Stones' Rock & Roll Circus, with the late Jessie Ed Davis on lead guitar. The two-time Grammy winner is also a composer and ethnomusicologist who plays 20 instruments.

      Mahal describes his approach as cultural and world-based. "It's always been a global perspective," he says. Even in the early days when nobody knew him, he recalls, someone might say to him, "Well, that album is perfect, but what was that calypso song doing on there? What does that got to do with it?"

      The response is a no-brainer to Mahal. "I relate to these various traditions that I feel are connected through family, extended family and influenced by influence," he explains.

      Too often, he suggests, we limit our perspective. "I think that the way music is played [in America], it's terribly narrow cast," he says.

      Narrow is not a word one applies to the art of Taj Mahal. He has been described not as a purist but an eclectic artist who finds common spirit with the blues. If he began as a blues interpreter, his concoction now is flavored with rock, traditional Appalachian sounds, jazz, calypso, reggae and more.

      Mahal's work also is found on several film scores, including Sounder, in which he had a minor acting role. Brothers, based on the lives of George Jackson and Angela Davis, includes a score by Mahal consisting of both background music and original songs.

      He is part of award-winning journalist Art Tipaldi's book, Children of the Blues: 49 Musicians Shaping a New Blues Tradition.

      Mahal says he made the connection with the blues when he was a very small child. "It was something I always felt so deeply and it just spoke so deeply. It's always something you can work with and keep your life on track."

      His parents were both musical. "I couldn't even imagine that some people didn't even have music in their house," he says. His dad was a jazz pianist and arranger of Caribbean descent. His mother was a gospel-singing schoolteacher from South Carolina.

      At its core, what does music mean to him? "It's the song of life, man," he replies. He walks with the energy of music every day, he insists. "I don't have to turn it on to hear it play. It's always there."

      Music, and especially the blues, speaks to us in different ways, he says. As for the blues, "It is a very magical thing. It is exciting to me every night." Regardless of your age or color or background, the blues is "the sound of your life at that moment, or in the past, or what you have coming up," he says.

      Mahal, who maintains a website at www.tajblues.com, realizes he has been blessed. "In the earlier years there was a large body of older players still available and we could go see them in concert," he recalls. "I was lucky enough to catch some of the great purveyors of the music while they were still in their prime and past their prime. I was inspired to not only continue their work, but bring the message of the work to the people in general.

      "All of a sudden here comes a whole group of [performing situations] to keep the music available to the next generation. I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I have to consider myself extremely lucky to be able to do what I love for a living."