OTIS TAYLOR / “Neo-Blues Mixtape”

02 Otis Taylor Mixtape.mp3 (104.84 MB)

OK, this is some strange shit.

What I should say is that this is about strange shit cause the music itself is not strange. A little different maybe. Well, to be truthful, a lot different from the stuff on the radio, and even somewhat different from a lot of the stuff flying around the internet. But Otis Taylor ain’t strange in and of himself even though what he doing got a cutting edge to it.
 
The edge comes from two sides. The upside is making music like we used to make music before the man started trying to make money off of recordings of our music. The downside is Otis be talking about a lot of stuff that happens amongst all of us but most of the time we don’t speak upon those things, and especially in public we won’t utter a mumbling word about so-and-so and such-and-such, and here this man is singing out loud, out the front part of his mouth, loud enough for the whole wide world to hear.

Every community had one or two, disheveled men and women who kind of just wandered around, not harming nobody but scaring the shit out of little kids with all their mumbling and cussing up under their breath, and shouting at the clouds and such. Standing in front the church, piss running down their legs, saying if Jesus so almighty why don’t he save us from the devil?

Or maybe he preach on the corner with a beat-up megaphone what be painted white with little red crosses all over it, and his favorite scriptures be the book of Revelations.

Or could be the man stumbling under the bridge wearing an old army coat in the summer, same coat he wore when he come home from the war five years ago, ain’t never washed it or even much took it off since he went to the corner for cigarettes and just kept walking—that was back in Indianapolis; he in New Orleans now up under the expressway.

All them people and more have terrible stories we need to know. Otis Taylor is telling them, and Otis tells our stories too. These are disconcerting notions. Testimonies from the proverbial wretched of the earth—and who among us does not have a little twist of something shoved deep up in our secret sack?
 
I like Taylor’s "tell-it-like-it-was" songs. I like that most of his songs don’t rhyme and are not structured the way we usually think songs are supposed to sound. I like also the rhythmic drive that builds as Taylor carries on with his singing.

So who is this man, Otis Mark Taylor?

I was born in Chicago in 1948. My father worked for the Pullman Company. My uncle — my mother's brother — was shot to death before I was even born, and she swore she was gonna leave Chicago when she had a chance. As it happened, my mother's grandmother bought some houses in Denver, so we moved to Colorado in '52. I was raised in Denver.
—Otis Taylor

Ain’t no country nothing, nowhere in his upbringing regardless of how his music sounds. What had happened was he got hooked on performing real early.

I got interested in folk music as a kid. The folklore center in Denver was like half-a-block away from where I walked to go to junior high school. The summer before I went to high school I discovered the Folklore Center — that was in '63 — and I basically never left the place. It was like I lived there. I'd go there on weekends and every day after school. A lot of kids were hanging out there. You'd listen to music and make friends. My whole life was based around the Denver Folklore Center until '67, when I moved to Boulder. I went there to hang out. It was a college town. I was playing music and it was a hipper scene.
—Otis Taylor

When he was nineteen he went to London and landed a recording contract with Blue Horizon Records but it didn’t work out partially because Taylor didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to record his music, didn’t know how to negotiate a contract, didn’t know how to work with arrangers and producers. He ended up coming back after three or four weeks.

And then it gets strange. He’s back home, playing, gigging and stuff but eventually he figures out he’s not happy. The music is not doing it for him, so he quits.

Otis Taylor had grown up wheeling and dealing, buying and selling and gravitated toward collecting and selling antiques, so he made a decent living as an antiques dealer. At one point in the eighties he was coaching a cycling team. The integrated team was ranked fourth in the nation. As a favor to a former sponsor of his team, Taylor agreed to help out at a café opening in 1995.

Otis called together what became the nucleus of his comeback band: bassist Kenny Pasarelli (who was a member of Elton John’s band and had toured with Stephen Stills) and lead guitarist Eddie Turner. Things jelled so well they went on to perform together for six years.

And then, and then, uh uhhh. Instead of everything taking off, Pasarelli pulled away to honor other commitments. So Taylor turned to his teenage daughter and pulled a parent on her. Cassie and her younger sister Jade Jae (see comment below) had sometimes sung on some of Taylor’s gigs. Jade Jae didn’t like it, Cassie sort of did, except now Otis wasn’t just calling her up for a cameo, he had dates in Europe and no bass player.
 

“My dad came to me and said, ‘Cassie, if you ever want to get any money from me again, you’re going to learn to play bass, and you’re going to come with me this summer.’ I was like, ‘Oh, crap!’

“He turned on a lot of parental guilt, and I hated him for it,” she says. Cassie was in a middle school world of rock, punk, and underground hip hop. “I was the tallest person (in my class), and I had freckles and red frizzy hair, but to add (playing in my father’s band) on top of it was like a little much, and I learned how to keep my mouth shut.” Now, she looks back on her father’s invitation as the best parenting move he ever made.
—Cassie Taylor

It turned out that Cassie became much more than just an emergency fill-in. Cassie actually made a major contribution to Taylor’s music and upon returning from the tour, Cassie became the permanent bass player and second vocalist.

The chemistry between Cassie and Otis is a delight. She adds a brightness to music that is often turbulent and heavy.

Otis Taylor has produced ten albums. Last week we featured his banjo album. This week we have selections from the other nine. I guarantee you’ll either love it or reject it. It’s hard to be indifferent to this man’s music.

My favorite of the albums are the new Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs and Double V, which is also sort of a love song album—sort of because it’s no moon/June, lovey-dovey set of happy to be together songs. I also recommend Definition of a Circle.

There’s a lot to talk about in how Taylor puts his music together. He presents himself as a plain spoken guy but he goes deep into history and emotional reactions to that history. And that investigation of history includes delving into the innards of his own life.

For example, “Mama’s Best Friend” is the story of a family in which the mother has a lesbian relationship after the father leaves and is sung from the point of view of one of the children. When Taylor first recorded the song, he sang the lead. On Pentatonic Cassie sings the lead. It’s a heavy song.

My mother was gay, and she eventually hooked up with one of her girlfriends. My father left and went to California. I put these stories out there for my children.
—Otis Taylor

In a similar way, "Mama's Selling Heroin" is also autobiographical. Although the lyrics and themes are often startling, those elements alone are not what makes Taylor's blues so spooky. It’s also the instrumentation, the arrangements, and the open tuning with a drone sound on guitar that Taylor employs. Additionally, as rootsy as Taylor’s music may sound, he often uses a cello and an African percussionist. Plus Pentatonic has jazz phenom, pianist Jason Moran along with cornetist Ron Miles contributing heavyweight instrumental colors in both accompaniment and solo. It’s a wild and extroverted mix that is incendiary, especially when they stretch out and roll for five, six and seven minutes—not your average three or four minute blues song.

Otis Taylor is aware of what he is doing. When he started out without a drummer he was aware. When he brought in his teenage daughter to replace a journeyman professional, Otis was aware that he was making a major change. And for sure he was aware when he recorded with four other banjo players, and also when Taylor employed Jason Moran.

What Taylor has is a desire to make fresh music that is rooted in social reality. Taylor is not trying to recreate Lightin’ Hopkins or John Lee Hooker. Nor is Taylor trying to appeal to a young audience by fusing his music with rock rhythms or hip hop lyrics. What Taylor is doing is articulating the sounds in his head, the visions his life experiences have given to him. His goal is nothing less than the impact of truth directly said.
 
Otis Taylor is a true creative musician and he is clear about what that means.

 

If you listen to all my records, it’s a journey. That’s why I just worry about the concept, so the whole thing comes together as an album. Concept is where the real work comes in. Like Below the Fold was a really heavy concept. I had all these Appalachian fiddle and cello players play with me to give it this really strange sound that nobody had ever heard before. People say they like to go to the edge, but I believe you have to go to the edge and fall off, because if you don’t fall off, you will not know where the edge is. I have to take it to where it falls apart and then bring it back in. Every album I do, I take a certain risk that it could be a flop. But I guess because I take the risk people get excited about my music. This ain’t no ‘60s rap—if you’re trying to be avant-garde, you’ve got to just fall off the edge. You can’t be creative and conservative at the same time.
—Otis Taylor

Rather than go into a long breakdown of the songs, I encourage you to just open up to the music, just listen, don’t worry about what he’s doing or how he’s doing it. Just listen. It won’t be the most pleasant experience you'll ever have but it will be a rewarding experience that will lead you to think about some things you’ve probably never thought about before.

—Kalamu ya Salaam


Otis Taylor Mixtape Playlist
 
From Blue Eyed Monster
01 “Hungry For Love”
02 “Hey Joe”

 
From When Negroes Walked The Earth
03 “9th Cavalry Blues”
04 “Pretty Polly”

 
From White African
05 “Resurrection Blues”
06 “Saint Martha Blues”


 
From Respect the Dead
07 “Ten Million Slaves”
08 “Just Live Your Life”

 
From Truth Is Not Fiction
09 “House of the Crosses”
10 “Kitchen Towel”


 
From Double V
11 “Took Their Land”
12 “It's Done Happened Again”
13 “Reindeer Meat”
14 “Mama's Selling Heroin”

 

 

From Below The Fold
15 “Feel Like Lightning”
16 “Working For The Pullman Company”
17 “Went To Hermes”


 
From Definition Of A Circle
18 “They Wore Blue”
19 “Few Feet Away”
20 “Maharaja Daughter”
21 “Mexican Cowboy”



 
From Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs
22 “Sunday Morning”
23 “Silver Dollar on My Head”
24 “Mama's Best Friend”
25 “If You Hope”
26 “Walk On Water”

 

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 6:32 am and is filed under Contemporary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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