"A lot of people think blues music is gonna bring you down," says Taj Mahal. "Well, my music will never do that."

With 40 albums, nine Grammy nominations and countless collaborations to his name, this 63-year-old blues master is what you might call an old dog. But his music the quality of which he judges with the simple query, "Are they dancing?" has always been more about the silver lining than the cloud.

When he woke up this morning, Taj Mahal put on a Hawaiian shirt, a straw sun hat and a grin as wide as its brim.

One of the last giants of a generation, Taj Mahal was there at the birth of the Sixties blues revival alongside Eric Clapton and BB King, guesting at The Rolling Stones' infamous Rock And Roll Circus in 1968. And he has been redefining its legacy with his distinctive world blues music ever since.

Having grown up in Springfield, Massachusetts, the son of a Caribbean jazz pianist and South Carolina-born gospel singer, the then Henry Fredericks taught himself to play guitar and another 19 instruments.

Initially setting up musical camp with Ry Cooder in The Rising Sons, he began to develop his own Caribbean, African and Latin-fused take on the blues and, after deciding on the recording title Taj Mahal, released his eponymous debut solo album in 1967.

"I had a bunch of dreams that had to do with Mahatma Gandhi and Asian music," he explains of the conspicuous moniker. "And I figured that, since I wanted to make a big name for myself, I'd make it the biggest name of all."

With his gravelly voice and gentle, almost conversational style, Taj Mahal sounded like a Blues Historian right from the start. But he was as adept at writing a contemporary tune as he was at unearthing long-lost classics, and used them to draw on folk, jazz and Hawaiian sounds.

"My perspective has always been global," he explains. "Even in the early days when nobody knew me, they'd go, 'Well, that album is perfect but what was that calypso song doing on there?

As I see it, the word 'pure' doesn't apply to anything as flexibly impure as the blues."

In keeping with this attitude, Taj Mahal has collaborated with everyone from Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters to Sheryl Crow, and recently released an album with The Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar in East Africa.

Tonight he appears with drummer Kester Smith and Bill Rich on reggaetinged bass (a stripped down line-up which allows his clean guitar playing and occasional indulgent ass-wiggle to take centre stage) and is supported by Idrissa Soumaoro, a former teacher and member of Les Ambassadeurs who recently won an international world music award for his mellow, Malian take on the blues.

Starring two musicians whose talent is for seeing unlikely connections between disparate genres, this may be a blues concert but it's one which promises to leave you feeling considerably less depressed and decidedly uncynical.

Starts 8pm, Tickets £18.50/£16, Call 01273 709709