Recycling the Blues and Other Related Stuff" is most likely Taj's best album and definitely his best album side. At a time that blues meant listening to a wailing electric guitar, Taj swam against the current, and produced an awesome minimalist format. The first cut, "Cakewalk into Town" is adorned with Howard Johnson's tuba and some handclaps. Nobody but Taj could have pulled that off. You see great guitarists like Mark Knopfler use steel guitars as album cover ornaments, and Johnny Winter even cut a song with one, but Taj really knows what to do with one. In fact, whether it's an upright bass, banjo, or whatever, he will get incredible sounds out of it. Brian Jones move over. The album's version of "Sweet Home Chicago" is a simply definitive version, dare I say it, blowing away the track we have of Robert Johnson. Why this song and this version of this song isn't Chicago's theme song instead of The Chairman's is pretty obvious. The Pointer Sisters' background vocals are perfect. Ditto on "Texas Woman Blues," but the striking aspect of this song is the listener's recognition of how Taj has changed the texture of his voice from an edgy gravelly sound in the previous songs to a rich warm baritone. Anyone that picked up on the cd issue of "The Real Thing" will notice this quality throughout that album. And of course, on both albums, Taj shows us he can whistle better than anyone else. He is just so musically talented, especially during this period of his career, as to be disgusting. What is truly disgusting is that this cd is out of print and wasn't reissued with the reissues of his other early albums.
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