Otis Taylor – When Negroes Walked The Earth (2000)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:34 minutes | 408 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Trance Blues Festival Records

Otis Taylor earned acclaim in 2001 when his White African release got picked up for national distribution, but this previous disc could just as easily have been the one to bring him into the spotlight: It was every bit as deep, ambitious, and listenable as White African. Listening to the independently issued When Negroes Walked the Earth reveals that Taylor was already one of the most fully developed voices in contemporary blues — an artist in the true sense of the word, intent on crafting his ideas into sharply realized songs and then into a full-fledged album. Everything seems purposeful; the skeletal arrangements lend emotional resonance to chilling songs like “500 Roses” and “12 String Mile,” and the remarkable variety in Taylor’s droning, single-chord structures rivals even that of John Lee Hooker. And lest anyone wonder whether a drumless trio can keep a groove, hearing album highlight “Cold at Midnight,” driven to the brink of oblivion by bassist Kenny Passarelli’s heartbeat pulse, should put all fears to rest. Taylor would return to many of the same lyrical themes later in his career — references to violence, death, and the paradoxes of African-American history are frequent — but When Negroes Walked the Earth covered these topics just as powerfully as his subsequent, more widely distributed work. – Kenneth Bays
(more…)

Otis Taylor – Otis Taylor’s Contraband (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 58:19 minutes | 621 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Telarc

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
(more…)

Otis Taylor – My World Is Gone (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:00:42 minutes | 634 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Telarc

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
(more…)

Otis Taylor – Hey Joe Opus Red Meat (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:12 minutes | 958 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © in-akustik HD

‘Otis Taylor’s fourteenth album presents a meticulously crafted collection of songs and instrumentals and is only akin to his preceding recordings in that the music again resists easy categorization. Blues and Folk elements are a key part of this, but Taylor’s cutting edge approach also draws on Psychedelic Rock, Jazz and Americana to create a hybrid that he calls Trance Blues.

Central to Hey Joe Opus Red Meat are Taylor’s musings on decision making and how these decisions can change all of our lives – and those of our families. Designed to be listened to as a single piece of music in ten parts, the new album has the song Hey Joe as its overriding theme which is performed in two different versions here, both with contrasting instrumentation.

Further songs and song forms are moving into instrumental sections. Often incorporating spacey textures and interlocking guitars, further spice is added to these pieces via judicious use of violin and cornet.
(more…)

Otis Taylor – Fantasizing About Being Black (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 42:53 minutes | 849 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © in-akustik HD

Blues music visionary Otis Taylor reflects on the African American experience in a timely release on the Trance Blues Festival label. Fantasizing About Being Black is Otis Taylor’s poetic musical exploration from the voyages of slave ships to the Mississippi Delta with a raw and haunting multi-instrumental blend that reveals the connection of history to modern day events; features musical guests Jerry Douglas, Brandon Niederauer and Ron Miles.

To date Otis Taylor has received 20 Blues Music Award (BMA) nominations.
(more…)