The pandemic hasn’t slowed down the polymathic musician that is Taj Mahal.

Taj Mahal was supposed to play Monterey in March 2020, but then Covid hit. Two years later, at the age of 78, the veteran road warrior who’s collaborated with everyone from The Rolling Stones to Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton and Wynton Marsalis is back in town, as part of a busy tour.

“Playing music is what I do – it’s been great, man,” says Taj Mahal (the stage name of the man born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks).

In his newest project, Get On Board, The Songs and Music of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, slated to come out next month, he reunites with Cooder, nearly 60 years after they partnered on the pioneering interracial band, the Rising Sons. The compilation of tributes to the two great Piedmont-style harmonica and blues masters leads off with the funky “My Baby Done Changed the Locks on the Door’’ and closes with the spiritual/civil rights anthem, “I Shall Not Be Moved.” It’s a testament to both Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee’s range and depth.

“They were like a two-piece orchestra,” Mahal says. “Who else is going to do it?

“Sonny and Brownie were a great duo – those interpretations are not around these days, except maybe on records. Sonny was playing with Blind Boy Fuller until Brownie joined him – they went all the way from the ’20s to the ’60s and ’70s. Not even Muddy Waters did that!”

Mahal sees his own work as a link in that chain.

“My ancestors gave me my gift!” he says. “I remain humble, steadfast and focused. What I’m doing now has probably morphed into the hearts and minds of a hundred black youngsters who realize the stuff they could be doing instead of rapping or pandering to the commercial stuff the record companies want.

“Reggae is music for the body, jazz is music for the mind, and the blues is music for the soul,’’ he adds.

Meanwhile, this unstoppable musical force continues blazing new creative paths. “Bob Weir (of the Grateful Dead) wants to work on an opera (with me),” he says. “It looks like it has some legs under it.”

All in a day’s work for the man who was born to play the blues.

TAJ MAHAL performs at 8pm Saturday, March 5. Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey, $39-$79. 649-1070, goldenstatetheatre.com