Musician Taj Mahal's long and celebrated career has taken him all over the world both physically and metaphorically.

Born in Harlem and growing up in Western Massachusetts to musician parents, Mahal was exposed to all sorts of different music in his home and early on took an interest in its origins.

He gravitated to blues music and, upon moving to the West Coast in the early ’60s, had a band with Ry Cooder that encompassed the whole scope of American music before the term “Americana” ha...