Schedule
schedule announcement coming march 2026
Pull up a chair, folks and sit right down. There’s plenty of room on the porch for this little get-down with two absolute heavyweights of the blues scene. When Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ last got together, their shared chemistry made for the 2017 Grammy-winning Best Contemporary Blues Album, TajMo. Last year, Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr. and Kevin Roosevelt Moore proved that one can, indeed, capture lighting in a bottle with Room on the Porch, a new collection of songs that nestle close to the heart in these fraught times.
The songs, Taj told Acoustic Guitar, are an invitation to listeners. “What we do is give people an alternative to the BS that’s out there,” says Mahal. “You want to relax? You want some peace? You want your thoughts to yourself? Come over here.” The songs evoke ancestral spirits, abiding hope and, as Taj says, a sense of peace.
Keb’ first heard Taj as a teen and was immediately taken with the way his idol weaves African rhythms, deep blues and island vibes to create a strain of blues that sounds both fresh and ancient, all at once. Twenty years after fist hearing him, the two finally met. To each of them, collaboration seemed a given.
Following the success of their first record together, Keb’ found himself wondering if the magic they created was just a fleeting turn of events. “That first album turned out so great that part of me wondered if maybe we just got lucky. But when we got back into the studio together, I felt that same magic again, and I realized it wasn’t luck at all.”
In truth, we’re the lucky ones. To have these elder statesmen of the blues play for us, is exactly why we stage this festival. It’s a celebration of this distinctly global artform, and one that brings the past and the future together under one, starry mountain night sky. It’s magic, that’s what.