Otis Taylor: Clovis People Vol 3 (Telarc)

 |   |  <1 min read

Otis Taylor: It's Done Happened Again
Otis Taylor: Clovis People Vol 3 (Telarc)

First, there is no Vol 1 or Vol 2, but this addition to Taylor's catalogue of "trance blues" which follows the excellent Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs of last year is certainly a welcome one.

Taylor takes a very different view of the blues: while others see it as an idiom with strict stylistic codes if not chord progressions, guitarist-singer Taylor regards it as a feeling to conjured up a message and so here, as before, he brings in unexpected instruments (cornet, pedal steel) into the orbit of tough, urban blues where the concerns are the reality of life in the 21st century inner-city America.

Here is the phonecall to a mother to say her son has been shot dead in the playground, a remembered place where black and white could sit together, a mother threatening a dealer in a school playground . . . and the universals of love, dreams of freedom, heartache . . .

And all these come at you in what sound like angry or sad tone poems of ambient blues grooves and textures shot through with guitar (sometimes from guest Gary Moore), organ, cello, violin and djembe (Taylor his own African-style touring ensemble) and hard percussion.

Otis Taylor is very different kind of blues musician, but one who has extended the contract in a highly original, compelling and sometimes demanding way. A mood piece. 

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Blues at Elsewhere articles index

Selwyn Birchwood: Living in a Burning House (Alligator/Southbound)

Selwyn Birchwood: Living in a Burning House (Alligator/Southbound)

This 35-year old bluesman from Florida sounds much older than his years, and although on Chicago's tough urban-blues Alligator label (which makes sense) at times his brutal guitar playing could... > Read more

The Cash Box Kings: Hail to the Kings! (Alligator/Southbound)

The Cash Box Kings: Hail to the Kings! (Alligator/Southbound)

Just a consumer service here: this is a stacked thick, 13-song collection of Chicago blues on the Alligator label fronted by singer Oscar Wilson and harmonica honker/singer Joe Nosek who wrote... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Romeo Void: Never Say Never (1982)

Romeo Void: Never Say Never (1982)

The British label Stiff Records (which gave the world Jona Lewie, Lena Lovich and Wreckless Eric alongside Elvis Costello and Ian Dury, among others) said everybody had one good single in them.... > Read more

Tri Nguyen: The Art of the Japanese Zither (ARC Music)

Tri Nguyen: The Art of the Japanese Zither (ARC Music)

As with the Korean gayageum, the 16-string Vietnamese zither (dan tranh, pronounced “dan chang”) is fiendishly difficult to play but offers gloriously, light and evocative charms in the... > Read more