Otis Taylor – Albums Collection 1997-2010 [10 CD]

Posted By : Designol | Date : 15 Jan 2012 09:40:27 | Comments : 12 |

“

A collection of 10 studio albums by American blues musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist whose talents include the guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and vocals.

”

“

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. Taylor's 2001 CD White African (Northern Blues Music), featuring Kenny Passarelli (bass, keyboards) and Eddie Turner (lead guitar), became his most direct and personal statement about the experiences of African-Americans. He addressed the lynching of his great-grandfather and the murder of his uncle. Brutality became his concern in songs about a black man executed in the 1930s for a murder he did not commit and about a father who could not afford doctor's bills and sat powerless watching his son die. Faith met Taylor's irony in his vision of Jesus as a mortal man who looked for ways to avoid his crucifixion and in his take on romantic infidelity among common men.

Taylor's first CD, Blue-Eyed Monster, and 1997's When Negroes Walked the Earth also cast an uneasy spell on the blues world. Part of Taylor's music could feel comfortable on the back roads of the Delta in the 1920s and '30s. It came as no surprise when he interpreted Charley Patton's "Stone Pony" on a Shanachie Records compilation, Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: New Acoustic Recordings of Pre-War Blues Classics, which also featured popular blues performers such as Alvin Youngblood Hart, John Hammond, Duke Robillard, and Corey Harris. At other times, Taylor's music was so uncompromisingly contemporary in its outlook on social injustices that he seemed more akin to South African poet and activist Stephen Biko.

Taylor was born in Chicago in 1948. After his uncle was murdered, his family moved to Denver for apparent safe haven. Taylor took an interest in blues and folk music at Denver's Folklore Center. After hearing Etta James sing "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You (Can't by Just Looking Under the Cover)," Taylor knew he liked the blues. He then went to the Folklore Center, where he heard the banjo and country blues and Mississippi John Hurt. He also liked Junior Wells and Muddy Waters and got into folk-blues and Appalachian music. He learned to play guitar, banjo, and harmonica. Only several decades later did he begin to understand the ties of the blues and its instrumentation to the savannah of western Africa.

By his mid-teens, he formed his first groups -- the Butterscotch Fire Department Blues Band and later the Otis Taylor Blues Band. He briefly stayed in England in 1969 to pursue a record deal with Blue Horizon, but negotiations failed and he returned to the U.S. In the '70s, he took up mandolin. He decided to leave music behind in 1976 and started a successful career as an antiques broker. After much prodding from Passarelli, Taylor returned to music in 1995. He first played a benefit concert. Then he started to play again both solo and with his band in America and Europe. In the summer of 2000, he received a composition fellowship from the Sundance Institute in Park City, UT, and hobnobbed with film celebrities at the Sundance Film Festival.

His When Negroes Walked the Earth was released on Shoelace Records that same year. Taylor began participating in "Writing the Blues" in the Blues in the Schools program, sponsored by the National Blues Foundation, and he started writing and performing new songs in 2001. White African and Respect the Dead were released by Northern Blues in 2001 and 2002, respectively, followed by Taylor's first release on Telarc Blues, Truth Is Not Fiction, in 2003. A second album on Telarc, Double V, came out in 2004, followed by Below the Fold in 2005 and Definition of a Circle two years later. The revelatory Recapturing the Banjo appeared in 2008, again from Telarc. The dark and jazzy Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs followed in 2009. Taylor wasted no time, and followed it up with 2010's Clovis People, Vol. 3 (volumes one and two do not exist). The musicians he assembled for the date are a testament to his ever-widening and eclectically expansive musical vision: daughter Cassie Taylor plays bass, famed electric guitarist Gary Moore plays lead guitar, pedal steel guitarist Chuck Campbell, and jazz cornet player Ron Miles are all featured on the recording.

Biography by Robert Hicks, Allmusic.com

”

Official Website
Wiki

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

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.

Review by Kenneth Bays, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Bowlegged Charlie [0:02:38.09]
02. Country Boy, Girl [0:02:40.30]
03. 500 Roses [0:05:45.71]
04. Cuckoo [0:02:43.63]
05. 12 String Mile [0:03:58.17]
06. They Don't Want Me [0:02:21.15]
07. Cold at Midnight [0:05:37.73]
08. Tight Wire Blues [0:02:26.45]
09. Naggin' Woman Blues [0:02:28.01]
10. 9th Cavalry Blues [0:03:43.36]
11. Tight Wire Blues [0:02:17.23]
12. Pretty Polly, traditional [0:02:53.02]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

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.

Review by Alex Henderson, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. My Soul's In Louisiana [0:03:35.22]
02. Resurrection Blues [0:05:59.08]
03. Momma Don't You Do It [0:02:24.22]
04. 3 Days And 3 Nights [0:04:21.31]
05. Round And Round [0:01:47.62]
06. Stick On You [0:03:30.49]
07. Rain So Hard [0:03:52.28]
08. Lost My Horse [0:03:10.51]
09. Saint Martha Blues [0:04:15.57]
10. Ain't No Cowgirl [0:02:14.60]
11. Hungry People [0:05:01.66]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

Otis Taylor might well be the best and most inspired of contemporary bluesmen. His White African album was a masterpiece -- which makes the task of following it doubly difficult. With Respect the Dead, however, he does a superb job -- the man is still very much on a roll. Kicking off with the stark, banjo-led "Ten Million Slaves," the intensity level never dips. It doesn't matter whether he's basing a song around a single chord, as he does on "Hands on Your Stomach," or simply using voice and harmonica on "Baby So," there's a remarkable urgency about his singing and lyrics, never more so than with "Black Witch," a tale of the American South that goes right back to Africa -- but the album returns and takes its tone to Mexico and racing for "Three Stripes on a Cadillac." The support, from Kenny Passarelli, Cassie Taylor, and atmospheric lead guitarist Eddie Turner, always serves to push the tension of the songs even higher. Taylor doesn't work within standard blues structures, and his lyrics stray far from the standard blues lines to encompass history and mythology. Where others seem content with the established limits, Taylor is pushing them further and further -- and in doing so, he's making some of the most exciting music around.

Review by Chris Nickson, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Ten Million Slaves [0:03:18.06]
02. Hands On Your Stomach [0:04:07.96]
03. Changing Rules [0:03:15.37]
04. 32nd Time [0:04:02.33]
05. Baby So [0:02:41.98]
06. Shaker Woman [0:03:58.48]
07. Black Witch [0:05:02.02]
08. Seven Hours Of Light [0:03:35.93]
09. I Like You, But I Don't Love You [0:03:05.40]
10. Jump Jelly Belly [0:02:09.10]
11. Three Stripes On A Cadillac [0:03:16.69]
12. Just Live Your Life [0:03:21.70]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

Otis Taylor can make people nervous. His take on the blues is defiant, angry, aggressive, and confrontational, owing as much to Peter Tosh as Charley Patton. Although he carries the dust of 1920s country blues in his mostly acoustic songs, his railings against social injustices are thoroughly contemporary. Taylor is an often pedantic songwriter, but he pulls it off by sheer bravado and conviction, and like a driver who blows through a stop sign, he's sure about where he's going. Truth Is Not Fiction follows the template of his previous three albums, with no drums (the rhythm comes from the sheer propulsion of Taylor's guitar, banjo, and mandolin playing) and a sort of Appalachian griot approach to things. One of the highlights is the strange Russian blues (complete with cello) of "House of the Crosses," a perfect example of Taylor's mix of rustic themes with cosmopolitan purposes. The full speed ahead rhythm banjo on "Babies Don't Lie" drills into your head like a freight train, and the ante is upped with double-barrelled banjos in both channels on "Shakie's Gone," making Taylor sound at times like Richie Havens on steroids. The album closer, a gut-bucket cover of the Big Joe Williams classic "Baby, Please Don't Go," seems oddly stuck in low gear, but overall Truth Is Not Fiction works well. Given his agenda, Taylor isn't for everyone, but he brings a fresh approach and a welcome shot in the ass to contemporary blues.

Review by Steve Leggett, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Rosa, Rosa [0:03:32.25]
02. Kitchen Towel [0:04:26.60]
03. Comb Your Brown Hair [0:03:32.77]
04. Babies Don't Lie [0:03:56.01]
05. Be My Frankenstein [0:04:46.74]
06. House Of The Crosses [0:04:05.16]
07. Past Times [0:04:13.38]
08. Shakie's Gone [0:03:38.25]
09. Be My Witness [0:04:27.30]
10. Nasty Letter [0:05:08.21]
11. Walk On Water [0:05:45.92]
12. Baby, Please Don't Go [0:02:43.37]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

Otis Taylor's unconventional approach to the blues has made him one of the freshest and most innovative musicians to hit the genre in decades. A multi-instrumentalist, his driving, modal arrangements and defiant, politicized subject matter make most other contemporary blues artists seem like watered-down popsters. Imagine grafting John Lee Hooker and Peter Tosh together into a righteous, fire-breathing hybrid, and you get the picture. But Taylor is more than just a loud challenge to the blues status quo. He is also a striking and intelligent songwriter who knows how to draw on history, when to re-imagine it, and when to dole it out straight, and he drives his points home with the force of a laser-guided jackhammer. On Double V, his second album on Telarc, Taylor has also added a kinder and gentler approach to his arsenal, coming up with songs like the opening track, "Please Come Home Before the Rain," and the closer, "Buy Myself Some Freedom," that make their points with easy, beautiful melodies. The upbeat and breezy "Please Come Home Before the Rain" is nothing short of a modern classic, a love song of sorts, sung by Taylor in a gentle, bemused voice as he tells the story of a sailor reading a letter from his wife. The stark "Plastic Spoon" is a haunting depiction of what happens when poverty and old age converge, as the protagonists in the song are forced to eat dog food with a plastic spoon in order to have enough money for prescription drugs. This is an unlikely subject for a song, certainly, but it works, and it illustrates why Taylor is such a vital and interesting artist. The autobiographical "Mama's Selling Heroin" is another unforgettable track. It isn't subtle, it doesn't wrap things up in a bow, and it is absolutely chilling. Taylor's choice of instrumentation on these songs is as innovative as his subject matter, with an assortment of churning, driving banjos, mandolins and acoustic guitars, little or no percussion, and well-placed cellos, all of which (when you add in his frequent hums, moans, and spoken interjections) combine to make him sound like some postmodern Appalachian griot who wandered into a new age convention and shook the place down. Taylor's 17-year-old daughter, Cassie Taylor, plays bass and adds harmony vocals throughout Double V, and she takes center stage on the album's final track, singing the beautiful and wistful "Buy Myself Some Freedom" with élan, framed by perfectly placed and nuanced trumpet lines from Ron Miles. There is nothing on Double V that hasn't been foreshadowed on Otis Taylor's previous albums, and there are plenty of his patented, piledriving modal blues pieces, but he has also figured out that there are times when nothing can rattle your head like a spoonful of sweetness.

Review by Steve Leggett, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Please Come Home Before It Rains [0:04:31.62]
02. Took Their Land [0:02:39.74]
03. Plastic Spoon [0:04:47.36]
04. Mama's Selling Heroin [0:03:53.15]
05. 505 Train [0:05:02.72]
06. Mandan Woman [0:04:49.20]
07. Sounds Of Attica [0:03:25.74]
08. It's Done Happened Again [0:02:05.13]
09. He Never Raced On Sunday [0:04:00.60]
10. Hurry Home [0:01:08.18]
11. Reindeer Meat [0:02:40.68]
12. Buy Myself Some Freedom [0:03:59.29]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

Otis Taylor doesn't suffer fools lightly, and his insistent, hard-driving modal songs, full of defiant reclamations of history and tender vignettes of people struggling to survive in hostile cultural territory, are like nothing else on the contemporary blues scene. Imagine John Lee Hooker if he had grown up in the Appalachians and cut his teeth playing with a steam-driven mountain string band, then add in the fierce political commitment of a Peter Tosh, and you begin to get the picture. On Below the Fold, his third release for Telarc Records, Taylor stays well within the seam of his previous work, which is by no means a bad thing, and for the first time he actually adds drums (played by Greg Anton) to a few tracks, which is a bit like shoveling Sterno into the boiler, and cuts like the opening "Feel Like Lightning" literally explode down the track like a string band playing "Reuben's Train" on steroids. He calms things down a bit for the lovely "Boy Plays Mandolin," which features some beautifully spooky trumpet lines from Ron Miles. Arguably the most striking track here, however, is a song co-written with his teenage daughter Cassie Taylor (who plays bass on the album), "Working for the Pullman Company." Cassie came up with the melody and chorus when she was only five years old, and she handles the lead and harmony vocals on the song with impressive and wistful poise. Below the Fold fits easily into Taylor's emerging canon, and it has the same urgent, ragged beauty of his previous albums. He is unlikely to change the way he does things in the future, which is just fine, since his Appalachian griot approach is perfect for his musical and political agenda, and perfect for shaking up the complacency of the contemporary blues scene.

Review by Steve Leggett, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Feel like lightning [0:04:52.84]
02. Boy plays mandolin [0:04:00.48]
03. Hookers in the street [0:04:43.44]
04. Mama's got a friend [0:02:53.01]
05. Working for the Pullman Company [0:04:16.97]
06. Your children sleep good tonight [0:05:29.64]
07. Didn't know much about education [0:04:45.38]
08. Went to Hermes [0:03:45.68]
09. Government lied [0:05:11.18]
10. Right side of heaven [0:03:21.86]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

In many cases, modern-day blues artists merely ape the blues masters of yesteryear -- following the blueprint to a T. So it is truly a breath of fresh air when Otis Taylor releases a new album, such as 2007's Definition of a Circle. Sure, there are elements of modern-day blues-rock detected (namely, the inclusion of guest guitarist Gary Moore on certain tunes), but Taylor is not stuck to the instruments that are usually associated with blues-rock. Case in point, such tunes as "Black's Mandolin Boogie," "Maharaja Daughter," and "Mexican Cowboy," which utilize such instruments as banjo, mandolin, electric cello, cornet, lap steel, etc. That said, there are several tunes that would certainly fit comfortably in the "modern-day blues-rock" category, including "Love and Hesitation" and "Something in Your Back Pocket" (which showcase Moore's electric guitar talents), as well as tunes such as "Little Betty" and "They Wore Blue," which fit somewhere between the two aforementioned approaches. Otis Taylor is one of the few modern-day bluesmen that manages to avoid stylistic clichés, as heard throughout Definition of a Circle.

Review by Greg Prato, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Little Betty [0:04:13.49]
02. Black's Mandolin Boogie [0:04:01.16]
03. Looking Over Your Fence [0:04:06.58]
04. They Wore Blue [0:07:11.49]
05. Few Feet Away [0:04:15.44]
06. Something In Your Back Pocket [0:04:57.40]
07. My Name is General Jackson [0:04:22.22]
08. Love and Hesitation [0:04:04.28]
09. Maharaja Daughter [0:04:04.68]
10. Long Long Life [0:03:47.38]
11. Mexican Cowboy [0:03:53.12]
12. Lifetime Of Freedom [0:05:05.12]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

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.

Review by Steve Leggett, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Ran So Hard The Sun Went Down [0:03:52.58]
02. Prophet's Mission [0:03:34.14]
03. Absinthe [0:04:22.13]
04. Live Your Life [0:03:38.70]
05. Walk Right In [0:04:01.66]
06. Bow-Legged Charlie [0:04:25.52]
07. Hey Joe [0:04:33.78]
08. Little Liza Jane [0:02:44.90]
09. Five Hundred Roses [0:04:14.13]
10. Les Ognons [0:03:26.85]
11. Deep Blue Sea [0:02:21.24]
12. Simple Mind [0:04:23.53]
13. Ten Million Slaves [0:04:10.45]
14. The Way It Goes [0:02:56.57]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

Otis Taylor doesn't suffer fools lightly, and his songs are full of defiant reclamations of history and tender vignettes of people struggling to survive in hostile cultural territory. Now he wants to talk about love. Taylor began his career playing bluegrass banjo, but switched to guitar (and the blues) in the late '60s, working in various bands and as a solo artist before walking away from it all 1978. He re-emerged a couple decades later in the mid-'90s with an utterly unique and modal-driven blues style that made full use of his gritty singing voice; his quirky songwriting skills; and his raw, driving guitar and banjo playing. Taylor really hasn't been idle since, and Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs is his tenth studio album in 14 years. Following on the heels of 2008's Recapturing the Banjo (which did exactly what its title says), this set finds Taylor turning his attention to love, but these aren't love songs in the normal sense, and more often than not these songs chart the course of love in dramatically unstable and even dangerous relationships. No moon and June stuff. Not even close. Much bleaker. The album opens with "Looking for Some Heat," and yeah, it's about love, but things don't end well at all. "Lost My Guitar," which is all about the loss of love in the truest sense, uses guitars and fatal car accidents as central metaphors. Nope, love isn't all roses in Taylor's view of things. And the sound of this album is different, too, with frequent use of solo cornet, giving these tracks a kind of dark, jazzy feel, particularly on cuts like "I'm Not Mysterious" that feature jazz pianist Jason Moran and Ron Miles' cornet. Irish blues-rock guitarist Gary Moore pops up on three cuts, and Taylor's daughter and bassist Cassie Taylor handles lead vocals on a few songs, including the striking and wonderful "Maybe Yeah." Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs ends up being an urgent, stubborn, and sometimes overly dark view of love in all of its unavoidable permutations. In other words, it's exactly the kind of album of love songs you'd expect from Taylor, one that is direct and as baffling as it is challenging.

Review by Steve Leggett, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Looking For Some Heat [0:05:55.52]
02. Sunday Morning [0:04:15.58]
03. Silver Dollar On My Head [0:03:44.74]
04. Lost My Guitar [0:04:37.14]
05. I'm Not Mysterious [0:07:29.77]
06. Young Girl Down The Street [0:06:20.49]
07. Country Boy, Girl [0:04:47.13]
08. Talking About It Blues [0:04:45.85]
09. Walk On Water [0:08:02.40]
10. Mama's Best Friend [0:05:02.29]
11. Maybe Yeah [0:04:09.02]
12. Dagger By My Side [0:03:45.73]
13. If You Hope [0:05:57.44]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“

Over a decade, folk-blues songwriter Otis Taylor has come up with compelling, often puzzling album titles; Clovis People, Vol. 3 is no exception. For starters, there aren’t any previous volumes. Also, the Clovis People he refers to don’t exist. Their name was chosen by archaeologists near Taylor’s own home in Pueblo, Colorado, who discovered the tools and pottery of a culture that had died out over 13,000 years ago.

Taylor’s approach is quite spare and atmospheric, though his ensemble is sometimes exotic: some of his guests include jazz trumpeter Ron Miles, electric guitar slinger Gary Moore, Fara Tolno on djembe, pedal steel guitarist Chuck Campbell, and his regulars, daughter Cassie on bass and theremin, and Larry Thompson on drums, along with assorted guests. Taylor’s trademark vocals and guitar are ever-present. These blues are moody, sometimes menacing: “Little Willie” is a narrative account of a young boy shot dead on a school playground. A biting lead guitar line is answered by Taylor’s stuttering rhythmic one. Campbell’s pedal steel weaves between the two as Cassie’s bass rumbles, and the skeletal, pulsing crackle of Thompson’s kit heats up Taylor's moan toward a biting crescendo. On “Rain So Hard,” Miles' trumpet paints Taylor’s National steel with ethereal single notes and short runs, as a theremin, pedal steel, and a cello fill out the bottom. It’s a slow, hypnotic John Lee Hooker-esque shuffle about lost love. “Lee and Arnez” is a folk song textured by Moore’s trademark guitar snarl, a violin, and an organ. Its fragmented narrative is about race and changing times. Taylor’s reclaiming the ghosts of people he knew and staking a claim to what was always true, even if America didn’t know it at the time (and may still not): “There’s no color/there’s no difference.” “Ain’t No Cowgirl” features Moore's electric guitar against Tolno's djemebe. They snake and pulse under a sparse lyric about a truly dangerous woman. “Think I Won’t” returns us to the school yard. Fiddle, pedal steel, bass, guitars, and drums create the musical backbone that allows a mother to confront a drug dealer. How it ends Taylor doesn’t say, but the music offers enough pent-up rage and righteous anger that we can guess. Clovis People, Vol. 3 adds significantly to Taylor’s increasingly ambitious body of work. He mines new territory from an ancient--perhaps prehistoric--blues with grit, humanity, and an elliptical musical personality.

Review by Thom Jurek, Allmusic.com

”

Tracklist:

01. Rain So Hard [0:05:55.52]
02. Little Willie [0:04:53.62]
03. Lee And Arnez [0:04:34.24]
04. It's Done Happened Again [0:03:40.16]
05. Past Times [0:03:50.70]
06. She's Ice In The Desert [0:04:10.81]
07. Hands On Your Stomach [0:03:49.81]
08. Harry, Turn The Music Up [0:04:04.32]
09. Ain't No Cowgirl [0:03:23.49]
10. Babies Don't Lie [0:04:01.17]
11. Coffee Woman [0:03:40.49]
12. Think I Won't [0:03:47.82]

EAC log

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All thanks to original releaser - squirr

Welcome to my Blog

Download from FileSonic folder

Download from FileJungle folder

Download from Uploadstation folder

ADVERTISING »

High Speed Download

« ADVERTISING

Posted By: terra6 Date: 15 Jan 2012 10:00:12

Nice upload, great share! Cheers

Posted By: Jan Post Date: 15 Jan 2012 10:15:01

Great upload, but FileSonic links are not "Otis Taylor", but "Calexico" :)
Cheers

Posted By: mapache70 Date: 15 Jan 2012 10:17:22

Great upload! There is a problem with Filesonic files. They belong to the post of Calexico - Studio Works Collection.
Regards.

Posted By: Designol Date: 15 Jan 2012 10:26:51

Sorry... Filesonic fixed.

Posted By: mapache70 Date: 15 Jan 2012 10:38:32

Thaks Designol

Posted By: Jan Post Date: 15 Jan 2012 10:50:51

Thanks.... "Designol"
Super share :)

Posted By: pullerman Date: 15 Jan 2012 11:08:53

Thanks a lot, real great upload ;) !

Posted By: Kalli Date: 15 Jan 2012 11:38:01

Absolutely great share! Thanks a lot!
Who'd like to vote? "Truth is not fiction" is my absolute favourite!!

Posted By: przemozawka Date: 15 Jan 2012 12:26:16

Great upload! OTIS TAYLOR! Wow Extra upload - Nice

Posted By: psyclists Date: 16 Jan 2012 05:13:50

Great post. Too bad only you don't have Taylor's 1996 CD Blue Eyed Monster (I have only in 160kps). Still... mucho appreciated

Posted By: bluzer Date: 16 Jan 2012 08:10:23

Great!Thank you very much for sharing great music in lossless.cheers!

Posted By: nrwsps Date: 17 Jan 2012 01:22:38

Many Thanks.

Recent searches: