Taj Mahal is honoring a musical hero by bringing Bill Withers' lost legacy to light. The title track 'Time' represents the spiritual connection between two giants of soul, with Mahal ensuring Withers' widow gave her blessing before release.
While Bill Withers famously walked away from the music business in the mid-1980s, refusing to compromise his sound, Taj Mahal kept going—and going. At 84 with north of 60 albums, he's essentially saying he ain't going nowhere. The Grammy double in 2025 (lifetime achievement AND a competitive win with Keb' Mo') was his way of showing he's still got plenty left in the tank.
The album 'Time' drops May 1, 2026. Mahal has been playing music for approximately 76-77 years. The Phantom Blues Band has been his backing group for 30 years. He won both a lifetime achievement Grammy and a competitive Grammy in 2025.
Taj Mahal just flipped a lost Bill Withers song into his title track—and at 84 years old, he's making it clear he's not done yet. While Withers walked away from the industry decades ago, Mahal is still out here proving that legacy isn't about slowing down, it's about keeping the gift flowing.
Taj Mahal is bringing a lost Bill Withers gem back to life, and honestly, the timing couldn't be more perfect. The legendary blues-folk-soul-reggae artist just announced his new album 'Time' (dropping May 1), and the title track is a never-before-recorded Withers composition that was discovered around 2010 when Mahal first started work on this project. Record executive Steve Berkowitz, who had worked with Withers, brought the unreleased song to Mahal's attention—and after getting blessing from Withers' widow following the soul great's death in 2020, the track is finally seeing the light of day.
"We got a magic wand with the song 'Time' from Bill Withers," Mahal told Variety. "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." He added with a note of timeliness: "I'm always putting out stuff that I think people could use."
The 84-year-old icon has been at this for about 76-77 years now, and he's got north of 60 albums under his belt—including soundtracks, children's music, you name it. The Phantom Blues Band, which backs him on 'Time,' has been with him for 30 years. When asked about his relentless drive, he put it simply: "It’s an ongoing freight train, my career... I'm here for the duration."
Mahal and Withers actually met a couple of times—their wives had gone to Claremont College together—and those encounters left him with even more admiration for the late legend. "When we did get to talk with one another, it was like we could see each other across the universe," Mahal said. "He was real folks." He understands why Withers famously quit the business in the mid-1980s after refusing to compromise his sound: "They were telling him what to do. He was like, 'No, I'm not gonna do that.' ... Boom, he's gone. I don't blame him." But for Mahal, it's different—he's stayed in his own lane, letting the industry come to him rather than chasing hits.
The Grammy love in 2025 proved just how much his legacy resonates. He took home both a lifetime achievement award AND a competitive Grammy (for best traditional blues album with Keb' Mo'). In February, a tribute concert in San Francisco featured heavy hitters like Van Morrison, Hozier, Joan Baez, and George Thorogood showing up to honor him. Ziggy Marley also appears on the new album, joining Mahal for "Talkin' Blues"—they previously collaborated on "Black Man, Brown Man" back in 2008.
"The movement of Sub-Saharan people into the western world has completely changed the music on the planet," Mahal said, explaining his genre-blending approach. "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." With 'Time' as his 60th-something album, he's still hitting that soul spot—and showing these younger artists how it's done.