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Not your conventional blues manAt first glance Otis Taylor would seem to be marketed as a blues man mostly for lack of a better term.But they don't really fit in anywhere else, either.John Lee Hooker, with the drone of prewar Delta players.Yet in addition to guitar, Taylor himself plays mostly banjo and mandolin, instruments more commonly associated with country than with blues.West African griot, a wise storyteller who passes his village history down orally.Now this may not all add up to any conventional definitions of blues, but it grows undeniably out of one black man's life and passions.Born in 1948 in the postwar blues mecca of Chicago, Taylor grew up, from age 6, in Denver, hanging around the Folklore Center and learning various instruments.London to sign with the Brit blues label Blue Horizon.James Gang and would soon graduate to Deep Purple.In 1977, Taylor left the music biz completely to become an art and antiques dealer.He didn't play in public again until 1995, when he also released his debut album Blue Eyed Monster (no longer available).When Negroes Walked the Earth followed in 2000, White African in 2001, and Respect the Dead in 2002; White African won him a Handy Award, the blues world's highest honor, for best new artist in 2002 while the latter earned '03 nominations for acoustic blues artist and contemporary blues album of the year.If he's going to ascend, blues fans will probably need to relax their definitions of the music.Musical miscegenation between blacks and whites has been taking place in America ever since the first African slaves began adapting Anglo church music in New England in the 1620s.The banjo was actually an African instrument, brought to this country by slaves and popularized in the 1840s by Anglos who aped black styles in minstrel shows before finding its way into country string bands.The similarly small and portable fiddle had been brought to this country by the earliest white settlers, and blacks in turn slowly adapted it.Those who assume that country music was always as exclusionary as it is today might be shocked to learn that jazz, the idiom usually credited with breaking down racial barriers, didn't see its initial integrated session until four years later.Fans of Harry Smith's landmark Anthology of American Folk Music, first released during the folk boom of the '50s and one of the essential reissues of recent years, didn't know if the '20s and '30s string bands they were hearing were white or black, "country" or "blues," because Smith didn't tell them in his notes.And this is the blues tradition Taylor extends into modern times, claiming Doc Watson as a touchstone as powerful as Muddy Waters.And what's left of the aging, traditional black blues audience has completely different taste, staying true to the soul blues of Bobby Blue Bland and Little Milton.Taylor's daughter Cassie sings backup, and most recently, he's had Ben Sollee on cello.Like great musicians in any genre, Taylor is both a classicist and a visionary.On the new album's "Kitchen Towel," members of a Native American farming family in the '30s commit suicide together rather than return to the reservation after their crops fail; in "House of the Crosses," a Russian child who's the product of rape grows up to be the prison guard of his father; in "Shakie's Gone" a slave family struggles to survive after the death of its patriarch.MAILRECOMMEND Facebook Mixx Digg Reddit del.You can buy Otis Taylor's albums at MSN Music.This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title.All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.He moved at a young age to Denver, Colorado where he grew up.He will be the support act on Gary Moore's Autumn 2007 tour of the United Kingdom.Otis Taylor's biography from Answers.Official website
This article about a United States jazz musician is a stub.This page was last modified 03:43, 23 December 2007.All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.Shop Amazon for low prices on a vast selection of new and used music.Everything from Classic to Rock, SACDs and rare vinyl editions.Bluesman Otis Taylor never skirted tough subject matter in a career that took him from the Folklore Center in Denver to a brief stay in London, England, to retirement from music in 1977 to operate as a successful antiques broker and since 1995 back again to the blues.Otis TaylorBy: Otis TaylorCredited Role:Main PerformerSong List: Little Betty, Black's Mandolin Boogie, Looking Over Your Fe...Otis TaylorBy: Otis TaylorCredited Role:Main PerformerSong List: Feel Like Lighting, Boy Plays Mandolin, Hookers In The Stre...Everything from Classic to Rock, SACDs and rare vinyl editions.Buy MusicWant to see your products in Yahoo!Build your own online store or Advertise with us.View RSS FeedMake money with Yahoo!Shopping APIs, now powering Yahoo!Otis Mark Taylor was born in Chicago in 1948 to Otis and Sarah Taylor.He bought his first instrument there, a used ukulele.Taylor returned to Colorado.Taylor often jammed with friends and family, but did not perform in public.This trio would go on to perform as the Otis Taylor Band for the next 6 years. |
