Do you have any idea how long it's been since I shared some Taj Mahal with you people? Well, I do, and I think it's high time you got to enjoy some more. To that end, I'm bringing you today not only a song that Taj Mahal co-wrote in 1968 but three covers of that song by such luminaries as The Blues Brothers and Albert King.
She Caught the Katy (And Left Me a Mule to Ride) is one of those songs that fooled me when I first heard it. I presumed it was a blues standard and that most musicians would have recorded it at some point or another. Imagine my surprise at discovering that the song wasn't much older than I was!
To me, that's a mark of how timeless She Caught the Katy really is. Of course you can't blame a girl for presuming a song about riding a mule to be of a bygone era rather than hippy heyday, can you? No, you can't.
Regardless of its age, it's a song that has made its way into the blues lexicon, and deservedly so. Taj Mahal still does it best, in my opinion, but have a listen to The Blues Brothers, Albert King, and a rockin' take on it from Widespread Panic. Let me know what you think!
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