Artist: Otis Taylor
The Long Way Around - Feature from Issue #73 Jan-Feb 2008
Otis Taylor – The old folks started it
“I don’t work like anybody else. OK, let’s put it this way. Until the last part is done, nobody believes it’s going to be a song.” –Otis Taylor Blues might travel best as a form recently arrived and itching to get to know the territory. As with jazz, the tension between the demands of repertoire [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #68 Mar-Apr 2007
Otis Taylor – Definition Of A Circle
Otis Taylor continues to expand on his trancey blues, remaining both more traditional and more progressive than the usual roots crews. It’s not just that the drums and organ he introduced on 2005′s Below The Fold are more prominent; this whole album, while still relying on his banjo and other folksy instruments, rocks harder than [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #59 Sept-Oct 2005
Otis Taylor – Below The Fold
It’s not for nothing that Otis Taylor has amassed a large cache of W.C. Handy nominations since turning his sights fully on music in the mid-’90s. With a hybrid style that blends traditional country blues and Appalachian music, Taylor composes and executes his material in a manner that’s primal and innovative at the same time. [...]
The Long Way Around - Feature from Issue #52 July-Aug 2004
Otis Taylor – Beyond the blues
The guitar figure introduces itself with a fetching lilt. It is almost happy, certainly beautiful. Captivating. Repeats, drops a few keys, rises. Drops and rises, the same riff resolving twenty seconds later into a question. Pauses. Gathers into chords which ring with the distant sounds of African pop until Otis Taylor, his voice both weary [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #46 July-Aug 2003
Otis Taylor – Truth Is Not Fiction
Winner of the distinguished W.C. Handy Best New Artist blues award in 2002, Otis Taylor certainly deserved the recognition, though he was hardly new. A seasoned bluesman whose career dates back to the 1960s, Taylor became discouraged with the business and gave it up for antiquing in the late ’70s. It was only in the [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #40 July-Aug 2002
Otis Taylor – Respect The Dead
A veteran of the Otis Taylor Blues Band and T&O Short Line with guitarist Tommy Bolin, Otis Taylor ended his extended hiatus from the music business in the 1990s. The driving, intense folk blues of Respect The Dead follows last year’s acclaimed White African. Again using a drumless format, Taylor handles acoustic guitar — he’s [...]
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