Blues legend Taj Mahal, a groundbreaking figure who mixes Hawaiian, Caribbean, Latin, Cuban and African elements into his sound, is planning to collect Social Security this year. But he's far from retirement.

"I'm 65, but do I feel like I'm over the hill? No!," he said via telephone from his Berkeley, Calif., base last week. "My plumbing works. Everything else works. I got a job I love, work with people I love, and I have something to share. I'm not giving it up."

Mahal, born Henry Saint Claire Fredericks on May 17, 1942, in Harlem, has ramped up his cool Hawaiian vibe, reviving his Hula Blues Band with yet another statewide tour, which continues tonight at The Waterfront at Aloha Tower Marketplace.

A maverick who started out in 1961 with R&B dance band "The Elektras," played with guitar hero Ry Cooder in the '60s and gave a young Ben Harper a breakthrough opening-act gig in the early '90s, Mahal says he's loved Hawaiian music since way back. (Cooder and Harper both play Hawaiian-influenced slide guitar.)

"I'm a poi dog, brah," he said, chuckling. "When I first heard Hawaiian music, I got into the Island mentality. ... You don't have to be with the crowd. It's important to have a sense of who you are as an individual, and don't worry if anybody likes it or not.

"If you like it ... that's all that matters."

This bruddah, who's been playing roots music for four decades, says he loves to occasionally reprise his kind of Island-inspired music.

"We haven't played with the Hula Blues for a couple of years and we're gonna have fun," he said

"The band is eight (members) plus me. I've learned slack-key, but I don't do much of it in the show. Everything's acoustic, a plugged-in sound. I want the sound of wood and strings; and we play Hawaiian, some reggae, and it's not too far out there."

Mahal lived on Kaua'i for a dozen or so years. He gave up his property at Oma'o, on the west side of Kaua'i a few miles outside of Lihu'e, but his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter still call Kaua'i home.

He maintains that his bond with the Islands and the music is stronger than ever.

"Hawai'i has given me so much; I want to give back," Mahal said.

"I've enjoyed the music from the late 1970s. ... I went to Fiji and some fans came to see me. They played this album with Gabby Pahinui doing 'Moonlight Lady,' which had my friend Ry Cooder playing, along with Bla, Cyril, Martin (Pahinui's sons) and other brahs," he said. "When I first heard 'Moonlight Lady,' I freaked out.

When I moved over to Kaua'i, the first person I got in touch with was Carlos Andrade (a musician and composer), and he and I sat and talked about music all night. There was a lot of connection between Hawaiian music and blues, and Hawaiian groups that were traveling earlier were playing bottleneck guitars. When you look at the framework on how Hawaiian music was built, there was ragtime, blues, and jazz influences."

While it was "Pops" (as Pahinui was known) who opened up his soul to Hawaiian music, Mahal first heard Island sounds in the 1960s and '70s, on the radio.

"When I was younger, something powerful came over the radio; I later learned it was 'Hawaii Calls,' and that music there hit me at a deep level," he recalled.

His Hula Blues bandmembers play 'ukulele, slack-key guitar, blues guitar, carimba, flute, saxophone, clarinet, panpipes and zither, among other instruments. Musicians include the gang from Na Pali: Carlos Andrade, Pat Cockett, Fred Lundt, Kester Smith, Rudy Costa, Pancho Graham, Michael Barretto and Wayne Jacintho.

They've toured many times and put together two album projects, raising the bar on the Hawaiian hybrid sound and helping grow it here and abroad.

"Now, there seems to be a resurgence in Hawaiian music," said Mahal. "I'm amazed the amount of people who know Iz and 'Over the Rainbow.' I had my 'ukulele with me at the airport once, and this guy who was 76 came over and totally blew me away; he had a nice collection of Hawaiian music, which started when he heard Iz singing. You'd think he grew up hearing Arthur Godfrey playing the 'ukulele, like I did! I know my mom got me an 'ukulele because of Godfrey, and he had his woman, Haleloki (Kahauolopua) dancing hula on the old black-and-white TV show, and me and my brothers were nuts about her."

Recently, Mahal encountered a vintage album of what he called "down-home music" — an album titled 'Jazz Goes Hawaiian,' with Louis Armstrong on the cover. "Andy Iona was on it, so I'm thinking, wait a second, this guy is playing music in the 1930s in Hollywood, when Louis Armstrong was on the West Coast. It don't get deeper than this; playing blues in the Hawaiian style," Mahal said.

Two cuts he particularly favors — "On a Coconut Island" and "On a Little Bamboo Bridge" — were performed by Satchmo and Iona and The Islanders. Mahal said the Hula Blues will likely include these ditties in this month's shows, and he hopes to record at least one of the titles.

Of course, Mahal's foundation is the blues, the essence of his musical pulse.

"Blues is the big ingredient," he said of his DNA. "What might be confusing is my background; my mother was American-African with European roots from South Carolina, and my father (a jazz composer, pianist and arrange) was Jamaican. And I guess I draw from these roots."

His mom steered him to piano at an early age; the lessons didn't last very long, though, because Mahal had other interests.

When the family lived in Springfield, Mass., a neighbor who could play guitar like Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed hooked Mahal on guitar.

Mahal's college degree, earned in 1964 from the University of Massachusetts, was in animal husbandry and agriculture. But it was at college that he adopted the name Taj Mahal, inspired, he said, by a dream.

He started playing music, he said, as a way to raise money for college. Although his career took off, he always liked the country life, so the Islands later provided some respite.

"That's why I like the Big Island, that's why I like Moloka'i," he said. "Places with the least amount of commercial development. Kaua'i was like that; I wanted my kids to be surrounded by agriculture; you could drive up to my house and see cows grazing, horses everywhere — a much better feeling than cement and asphalt."

But Mahal's music — a blend of genres that includes reggae, gospel, blues, Cajun, bluegrass, African and, of course, Hawaiian — sometimes sends him to big cities and big-time music events. He's earned two Grammys, in 1997 for "Senor Blues" and in 2000 for "Shoutin' in Key."

So what fuels his desire to keep on performing?

"The joy of being able to do what I'm doing, the way I want to do it," he said.

"I play the music I want to play. I meet the greats around the world. I'm not afraid to express myself the way I hear it. And lucky enough to have people who want to hear it the way I do it.

"A lot of people don't get to do what they love. I've actually made a living as a musician, playing the music I love, so I feel very fortunate."