Blues

Otis Taylor - Otis Taylor's Contraband (2012)

2018-11-21T15:02:26Z

Otis Taylor - Otis Taylor's Contraband (2012)


1 	The Devil's Gonna Lie 	3:57
2 	Yell Your Name 	3:31
3 	Look To The Side 	4:42
4 	Romans Had Their Way 	4:11
5 	Blind Piano Teacher 	3:33
6 	Banjo Boogie Blues 	4:33
7 	2 Or 3 Times 	3:40
8 	Contraband Blues 	4:29
9 	Lay On My Delta Bed 	2:33
10 	You 10 Dollar Bill 	3:55
11 	Open These Bars 	6:30
12 	Yellow Car, Yellow Dog 	4:01
13 	Never Been To Africa 	3:46
14 	I Can See You'Re Lying 	4:47

Bass – Cassie Taylor, Todd Edmunds
Choir, Vocals – Sheryl Renee
Cornet – Ron Miles
Djembe – Fara Tolno
Drums – Larry Thompson
Fiddle – Anne Harris
Guitar [Steel Pedal] – Charles Campbell
Lead Guitar, Guitar – Jon Paul Johnson
Organ – Brian Juan
Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Banjo – Otis Taylor

Anyone who has paid attention to Otis Taylor's career understands that he is not a conventional bluesman, yet his diverse music, for all of its ambitious instrumentation, odd rhythmic meters, minor pentatonic scales, and textural strangeness embodies the spirit of the blues authentically and unmistakably. His is an iconic -- and some would argue iconoclastic -- vision. Contraband is nearly an hour long and contains 14 songs. Taylor plays guitar as well as banjo, and he uses a familiar slate of players: cornetist Ron Miles, keyboardist Brian Juan, fiddler Anne Harris, guitarist Jon Paul Johnson, with Chuck Campbell on pedal steel, djembe player Fara Tolno, and two bassists: daughter Cassie Taylor and Todd Edmunds; Larry Thompson plays drums. The album's hinge piece, "Contraband Blues," elucidates the use of human beings being used as actual contraband. The track, with its layered strings, spooky pedal steel, skittering snare, and open-toned, droning blues details the plight of slaves during the Civil War. They were freed by law, but weren't free -- they were used by the Union Army as captured property. Opener "Devil's Gonna Lie" is a circular two-chord blues riff, accentuated by djembe and multi-tracked cornet, B-3, pedal steel and electric guitars, and the Wendy Rene Choir. Taylor sings in old gospel style about the "devil," but refers to him not so much as a person but as the persuasive power of evil. Punchy, funky, and gritty, evil is portrayed as any form of exploitation. Taylor examines race, class, and interpersonal relationships in unusual ways. "Blind Piano Teacher" is a soulful ballad that explores the relationship between a younger blind piano teacher of mixed racial heritage and an older man of no racial distinction. Miles' cornet playing is like another singing voice, answering Taylor's narrative. "Banjo Boogie Blues" is a strutting shuffle with screaming guitars, banjo, and drums, with the choir underscoring Taylor's call for universal and personal compassion. 12-bar blues are the basis of the tracks "Your Ten Dollar Bill," Yellow Car, Yellow Dog," "Romans Had Their Way," "Lay On My Delta Bed," and closing burner "I Can See You're Lying," but Taylor and his band stretch them to the limit rhythmically with odd instrumental and vocal cadences, only the drum kit keeping them on the rails. Still, it's the nearly acoustic Delta blues-inspired "2 or 3 Times," the Mexican corrido "Yell Your Name," the Americana-inspired "Never Been to Africa" (detailing the plight of a black soldier who has fought all over the world during WWI, yet never visits his homeland), and the shimmering acoustic/electric folk-blues of "Look to the Side" that lend mystery on this deeply focused set. By reining in the freedom that made Clovis People, Vol. 3 such a puzzling wonder, Taylor manages to up the ante musically and lyrically on Contraband. All killer, no filler. ---Thom Jurek, AllMusic Review

Otis Taylor urodził się 69 lat temu w Chicago. Zaliczany jest przez słuchaczy do najwybitniejszych a zarazem najoryginalniejszych współczesnych muzyków bluesowych na świecie. Jego pozycję na współczesnej scenie bluesowej potwierdzają liczne nagrody, m.in. dwie statuetki Blues Music Awards, do których w sumie był nominowany 19 razy, nominowany był również do prestiżowej Grammy Awards. Wśród muzyków ceniony jest przede wszystkim za nowatorskie i prowokacyjne podejście do muzyki bluesowej. Słuchając jego muzyki ma się od razu wrażenie, że to artysta unikalny i jedyny w swoim rodzaju.

Muzykę jaką gra często nazywa się “Trance Bluesem”, ze względu na hipnotyzujący rytm połączony z charakterystycznym głębokim dominującym głosem nad instrumentami. Słuchając jego kompozycji wpada się w trans, a noga sama tupie bezwiednie. Otis próćz śpiewu jest również utalentowanym muzykiem, po wirtuozersku posługuje się gitarą akustyczną, gitarą elektryczną i banjo. Nagrał dotychczas 14 płyt i stale koncertuje, przyciągając niesamowitą muzyką tłumy na festiwalach i mniejszych koncertach na całym świecie. Artysta kilkakrotnie odwiedzał również Polskę.

Album “Contraband”, który prezentujemy jest trzecim od końca w dorobku artysty.

Wszystkie 14 utworów na “Contraband” to połączenie tradycji, świeżego podejścia do bluesa i pokrewnych gatunków. Słuchając całości czuje się, że to prawdziwa, żywa muzyka, pełna unikatowej osobowości, barwna i różnorodna, niepozbawiona radosnych jak i smutnych momentów, tak samo jak w prawdziwym codziennym życiu. ---Jakub (OvO) Sowa, radiobiper.info

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Otis Taylor - Recapturing The Banjo (2008)

2018-09-07T12:27:30Z

Otis Taylor - Recapturing The Banjo (2008)


1 	Ran So Hard The Sun Went Down 	
2 	Prophet's Mission 	
3 	Absinthe 	
4 	Live Your Life 	
5 	Walk Right In 	
6 	Bow-Legged Charlie 	
7 	Hey Joe 	
8 	Little Liza Jane 	
9 	Five Hundred Roses 	
10 	Les Ognons 	
11 	Deep Blue Sea 	
12 	Simple Mind 	
13 	Ten Million Slaves 	
14 	The Way It Goes

Vocals, Banjo, Written-By – Otis Taylor
Backing Vocals - Cassie Taylor, Guy Davis, Otis Taylor, Alvin Youngblood Hart
Bass – Cassie Taylor, Keb' Mo', 
Banjo – Alvin Youngblood Hart, Don Vappie, Keb' Mo', Corey Harris
Cornet – Ron Miles
Drums – Kevin Moore, Jr.
Guitar – Otis Taylor, Alvin Youngblood Hart
Harmonica – Guy Davis
Lap Steel Guitar – Alvin Youngblood Hart
Mandolin – Guy Davis, Otis Taylor
Percussion – Otis Taylor
Vocals - Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb' Mo', Corey Harris, Guy Davis, Don Vappie

Thanks to films like Deliverance and the rise of bluegrass since the mid-'50s, the banjo has come to be associated with white Appalachia in most people's minds, but the instrument actually has its origins in West Africa, arriving in the New World via the slave trade, and consequently became a dominant factor in early African-American song styles. A simple instrument with tremendous modal possibilities, the banjo, particularly in its five-string version, also has a much wider range of tones, approaches, and styles in its repertoire than most people only familiar with the slash-and-burn speed style of modern bluegrass are likely to realize. In this regard, the title of Otis Taylor's ninth album, Recapturing the Banjo, is quite literally a mission statement. Taylor has always featured the banjo on his various recording projects, but here he brings the instrument front and center and enlists the help of several other contemporary black musicians, including Alvin Youngblood Hart, Guy Davis, Corey Harris, Don Vappie, and Keb' Mo', to present the banjo in a clearer historical light. This is no archival museum album, however, and while it does encompass and illustrate several banjo styles, from the clawhammer work of Davis on the traditional "Little Liza Jane" to the delicate picking style of Keb' Mo' on his own "The Way It Goes" and the jug band approach of Harris and Vappie on Gus Cannon's "Walk Right In," Recapturing the Banjo remains very much an Otis Taylor release, full of the kind of driving, modal trance tunes that he has always done so strikingly well. The opener, "Ran So Hard the Sun Went Down," a Taylor original, is a case in point. With a massed banjo army of Hart, Harris, Vappie, and Taylor himself, and amended by Taylor's daughter Cassie Taylor on bass and backup vocals, the song races in modal fashion with a steam-engine drive not unlike some of the North Mississippi trance blues of R.L. Burnside and company. It's all pretty exhilarating. This isn't an album full of purist intentions, either, and there's plenty of lap steel and electric guitar included in Taylor's powerful take on the old chestnut "Hey Joe," for instance, which features a guitar lead that even pays homage to Jimi Hendrix's famous version. Another highlight is Hart's stripped-down (just Hart on banjo and Taylor on percussion) reading of another traditional song, "Deep Blue Sea," that takes the banjo well out of the parlor. Taylor has yet to make a disappointing album, and Recapturing the Banjo is yet another striking example of how he combines the past and the present in a powerful contemporary cultural statement that informs and instructs even as it keeps the feet moving. So don't expect "Orange Blossom Special." This is the banjo in its original habitat given a 21st century twist while still paying tribute to its African past, and that's quite an impressive hat trick indeed. ---Steve Leggett, AllMusic Review

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Otis Taylor ‎– White African (2001)

2018-07-16T13:25:58Z

Otis Taylor ‎– White African (2001)


1 	My Soul's In Louisiana 	3:35
2 	Resurrection Blues 	5:59
3 	Momma Don't You Do It 	2:24
4 	3 Days And 3 Nights 	4:20
5 	Round And Round 	1:48
6 	Stick On You 	3:31
7 	Rain So Hard 	3:52
8 	Lost My Horse 	3:08
9 	Saint Martha Blues 	4:19
10 	Ain't No Cowgirl 	2:14
11 	Hungry People 	5:06

Otis Taylor - Banjo, Electric Banjo, Guitar (Acoustic), Harmonica, Mandolin, Vocals
Eddie Turner - Guitar, Slide Guitar 
Kenny Passarelli - Bass, Keyboards
Cassie Taylor - Backing Vocals

Otis Taylor has a knack for interesting titles; Blue-Eyed Monster and When Negros Walked the Earth are among the CDs that the Denver bluesman recorded before White African. Taylor also has a knack for very dark and sobering themes -- this 2001 release, in fact, is full of them. On White African, Taylor's subject matter ranges from lynching in the Deep South ("Saint Martha Blues") to homelessness ("Hungry People") to being unable to afford health care for a sick, dying child ("3 Days and 3 Nights"). And Taylor doesn't try to sugarcoat his often disturbing lyrics with happy melodies. Greatly influenced by John Lee Hooker, the very soulful Taylor often favors moody, dusky, haunting grooves. So White African is as dark musically as it is lyrically. Over the years, dark humor has played a major role in the blues -- like country and hip-hop artists, bluesmen are known for finding a variety of humorous, clever ways to tell you how cruel and punishing life can be. But White African isn't dark humored; it's simply dark. This CD is also incredibly compelling, and it is enthusiastically recommended to those who don't expect lighthearted escapism from all of their music. ---Alex Henderson, AllMusic Review

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Otis Taylor – Fantasizing About Being Black (2017)

2017-05-06T14:35:07Z

Otis Taylor – Fantasizing About Being Black (2017)


1 	Twelve String Mile 	4:08
2 	Walk On Water 	4:22
3 	Banjo Bam Bam 	3:36
4 	Hand On Your Stomach 	4:01
5 	Jump Jelly Belly 	3:55
6 	Tripping On This 	3:14
7 	D to E Blues 	3:29
8 	Jump Out Of Line 	4:08
9 	Just Want To Live With You Baby 	3:26
10 	Roll Down The Hill 	4:03
11 	Jump To Mexico 	4:19

Bass – Todd Edmunds
Cornet – Ron Miles
Drums – Larry Thompson
Guitar – Brandon Niederauer
Lap Steel Guitar – Jerry Douglas
Violin – Anne Harris
Vocals, Guitar, Banjo, Composed By – Otis Taylor

Otis Taylor stands alone among 21st century blues musicians in his fearlessness in redefining what the music means in modern society. He pushes forward, but he also has a deep knowledge of its history, and 2017's Fantasizing About Being Black draws upon the past to offer commentary of contemporary race relations in America. Taylor's 11 original compositions -- including four earlier tunes re-recorded for this record -- take stock of African American history, from slavery into the present, but there's a concentration of stories from the 20th century, including songs devoted to World War II and Civil Rights marchers. No matter the setting, the songs feel alive, an impressive achievement made all the more so because of how understated Taylor's delivery is. He's expanded the essential single-chord boogie of John Lee Hooker so it's become mesmerizing and open-ended, but this music isn't designed for passive listening. There's dramatic tension in its circular chords and its sparseness helps draw attention to his stories. Neither his music nor lyrics follow shopworn blues changes, but that's why they feel so vital: far from resting on clichés, Taylor recasts the blues and the history of Black America on Fantasizing About Being Black in a way that speaks to a new century, and the results are bracing. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AllMusic Review

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Otis Taylor - Blue Eyed Monster (1997)

2014-11-23T16:58:12Z

Otis Taylor - Blue Eyed Monster (1997)


1 	Black Betty 	0:40
2 	Harry, Turn The Music Up 	3:10
3 	Hungry For Love 	6:05
4 	Nobody Knows My Name 	5:40
5 	Sito's Banjo Rag 	0:28
6 	Odie's Train Time 	4:05
7 	Coffee Woman 	4:04
8 	Sito's Banjo Rag 	0:25
9 	Ham Bones 	1:30
10 	Hey Joe 	7:27
11 	Sleepwalking Monster 	4:45
12 	Crawlin' King Snake 	6:13
13 	Laughing At The Moonlight 	2:20

Otis Taylor is one of the most intriguing and interesting of contemporary blues artists. Unlike many bluesmen who start young and grow into the music, Taylor's nearly 20-year absence from the industry meant that he returned with an experienced, mature perspective unlike anything in the blues. Although Taylor's sound is a unique hybrid of Delta-inspired country-blues and traditional folk and mountain music, his intelligent and insightful lyrics display a contemporary edge, tackling such prickly subjects as race relations, poverty, drug abuse, and social injustice.

Taylor was born in Chicago, but his family moved to Denver, Colorado after the death of his uncle while he was still quite young. The shooting of his uncle would prove to be an important moment in Taylor's life, and he would write about it on his 2001 album White African. Taylor's first instrument was the banjo, which he would later set aside for harp and guitar after learning of the banjo's minstrel show history.

The young musician began hanging around the Denver Folklore Center, where Taylor would be exposed to the music of Mississippi John Hurt and country blues. By his mid-teens he would form his first bands - the Butterscotch Fire Department Blues Band and the Otis Taylor Blues Band. Taylor was also influenced by artists like Etta James, Muddy Waters, and Junior Wells, and he would begin dallying in folk and Appalachian music.

In 1969 Taylor moved to England to pursue a record contract with Blue Horizon, returning to the states after the deal failed to go through. Back in Denver, Taylor formed the T&O Short Line with noted guitarist and (future) James Gang/Deep Purple member Tommy Bolin. Adding mandolin to his multi-instrumental toolkit, Taylor would later perform with the Denver-area band Zephyr before temporarily retiring from the music business in 1977.

Taylor spent the decade of the 1980s and much of the '90s as an antiques dealer and as the coach of an amateur bicycling team. At the urging of his friend, session bassist Kenny Passarelli (also a veteran of Joe Walsh's band), Taylor returned to music in 1995. Two years later, he would release his first solo album, Blue Eyed Monster, a collection of uncompromising blues songs. He would follow his debut with 1988's critically-acclaimed When Negroes Walked The Earth.

In the summer of 2000, Taylor received a composition fellowship from the Sundance Institute in Park City, UT and he later attended the Sundance Film Festival. White African, released in 2001, would be Taylor's first album to receive national distribution, and would be nominated for four Blues Music Awards, winning for "Best New Artist Debut." The album's treatment of the brutality experienced by African-Americans, including the lynching of his great-grandfather and the death of his uncle, would provide a contemporary edge to a classic folk-blues sound.

During the 2000s, Taylor has released a slew of well-received albums, roughly one every year, collections like Respect The Dead; Truth Is Not Fiction, with which Taylor introduced the concept of "trance blues;" and Double V all building upon the artist's unique blues music vision and earning Taylor a number of critical accolades and expanding his audience.

Taylor's talented daughter Cassie has also taken up the "family business," contributing vocals, guitar, and bass to her father's recordings. Taylor is also involved with "Blues In The Schools," visiting schools and colleges and presenting the "Writing The Blues" program he created with his wife Carol, mentoring students on blues music.

In 2008, Taylor took it upon himself to restore the banjo's place as a treasured musical instrument of West African origin, recording Recapturing The Banjo with fellow multi-instrumental bluesmen Guy Davis, Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Don Vappie, and Keb' Mo'. --- blues.about.com

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Otis Taylor – My World Is Gone (2013)

2014-11-04T16:42:23Z

Otis Taylor – My World Is Gone (2013)


01. My World Is Gone [00:04:27]
02. Lost My Horse [00:03:30]
03. Huckleberry Blues [00:04:40]
04. Sand Creek Massacre Mourning [00:04:32]
05. The Wind Comes In [00:05:48]
06. Blue Rain in Africa [00:04:14]
07. Never Been to the Reservation [00:05:02]
08. Girl Friend’s House [00:04:35]
09. Jae Jae Waltz [00:04:10]
10. Gangster and Iztatoz Chauffer [00:05:12]
11. Coming With Crosses [00:06:07]
12. Green Apples [00:03:52]
13. Sit Across Your Table [00:04:28]

Otis Taylor -  Banjo, Electric Banjo, Electronic Mandolin, Guitar, Slide Guitar, Vocals
Todd Edmunds - Bass, Tuba
Anne Harris - Fiddle
Brian Juan - Organ
Ron Miles - Cornet
Mato Nanji - Guitar, Vocals
Shawn Starski - Guitar
Larry Thompson – Drums

Otis Taylor is among the most mercurial of bluesmen. While his signature vocal phrasing and playing -- whether it be on guitar, mandolin, or banjo -- is rooted in several blues traditions -- his music almost never strictly conforms. Taylor's ability to morph his elliptical "trance blues" into any sound he pursues is beguiling. My World Is Gone is no exception. Its title refers to a comment made to him by Native American guitarist Mato Nanji of Indigenous after a concert. Nanji and his guitar are key players on about half the record. Most of these cuts address various issues in Native American history (from the Indian's side), especially the ill treatment of this first world people by the United States government and populace. Yet, in typical Taylor fashion, there are a couple of curveballs too. The title track is introduced by his acoustic guitar and Anne Harris' lonesome fiddle, as he gradually unfolds his tale, Nanji's electric stings the ends of his lines. "Huckleberry Blues" is essentially a one-chord funk vamp, propelled by Todd Edmund's bassline, and equally elusive jazzman Ron Miles' labyrinthine groove-laden cornet. Taylor plays chunky, amplified banjo chords atop Larry Thompson's drum kit. An acoustic banjo and Thompson's military snare, introduce "Sand Creek Massacre," the most haunting cut here. Nanji uses restraint in painting the margins with an array of guitar sounds and Miles flits and hovers in the mix. A B-3 shimmers in somewhere, and Taylor's voice, moaning and chantlike, brings the listener inside the drama. Americana is utilized in "Blue Rain in Africa," a story song about the white buffalo, sacred in Native American culture as viewed from the point of view of an Indian protagonist who has only ever seen one on television because the buffalo were almost wiped from the earth in the middle of the 20th century. "Girl Friend's House" is pulsed by banjo, throbbing bass, brushed snare, and Miles' multi-tracked cornet. It's about a "man who catches his wife in bed with a girlfriend and decides he wants to join in." Taylor's protagonist's pain and desire is evident in his groaning, grainy vocal. "Jae Jae Waltz" is a banjo- and cornet-fueled country waltz, while "The Wind Comes In" is slow blues rock with excellent guitar from Nanji. "Coming with Crosses" uses country and bluegrass to tell its horrific tale in a dramatic droning blues. Harris' fiddle is particularly effective as another voice in the narrative. "Sit Across Your Table," a love song, is the full-blown electric rocker that closes the recording. The music on My World Is Gone is always seemingly familiar yet impossible to pin down. Taylor's chameleon-like always-hiding-in-plain-sight aesthetic gives us a poignant, compelling recording that warrants repeated listening. In a decade or a century, it will more than likely sound as elliptical and necessary as it does now. ---Thom Jurek, Rovi

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