OTIS TAYLOR
Respect the Dead
(NorthernBlues Music)
Last year, bluesman Otis Taylor knocked the roots music world on its ear with his third album White African. An absolutely riveting record of mostly acoustic original tunes, it firmly announced the arrival of a major talent, a musician respectful of the country blues tradition but with his own distinctive interpretation of it. The Denver resident played old-time banjo, guitar and harp as a teen, and was soon the frontman for a variety of bands, including one that featured 70s guitar star Tommy Bolin. Quitting the music business in 1976, he spent nearly 20 years as an antiques dealer, specializing in Native American art and African American cowboy artifacts. He continued to play music with friends, which led to a public performance with veteran bassist Kenny Passarelli (Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joe Walsh) as part of a jam session with John McEnroe (???). Now half a dozen years into his revived career and hot on the heels of the triumphant White African, Taylor presents his fourth album Respect the Dead.
The new album doesn't alter the formula of the last one, and that's a good thing. Since the deaths of Junior Kimbrough and John Lee Hooker, no one has done the one or two-chord blues drone as well as Taylor. Working with fingerpicked and slide acoustic guitars, harp and acoustic and electric banjos, Taylor thrums the strings so skillfully and with so much rhythmic power that you'll scarcely notice the lack of chordal variety. Bassist/keyboardist Passarelli and guitarist Eddie Turner provide sensitive, tasteful accompaniment, with Turner especially shining on ethereal slide and almost ambient distortion. But they never get in the way of the man whose name is on the record, as Taylor's gritty, soulful singing and masterful picking form the center of every arrangement.
As wonderful as the performances are, the true stars here are the songs. Taylor's vision isn't a particularly happy one ("Some people, they just can't write happy," he says in a recent article for Acoustic Guitar). His stories are populated by slaves, manic depressives, cowardly soldiers, lynch mobs and other hard luck cases. In the opener "Ten Million Slaves," a man in a fallout shelter compares his current cramped circumstances with those of Africans in the holds of slave ships. "Black Witch" tells the tale of a lustful white man, his evil black mistress, and the hapless black husband caught in the crossfire. A small town sheriff loses his job and examines his out-of-date values in "Changing Rules." Love goes wrong in "Shaker Woman" and "I Like You, But I Don't Love You," a sentiment, Taylor notes, that applies to everybody.
Despite the grim settings though, Taylor always finds a glimmer of hope, a sliver of light. "32nd Time" commemorates the lives of white civil rights proponents killed in the struggle, highlighting the sacrifice as much as the tragedy. "Three Stripes on a Cadillac" also pays tribute, this time to a young Mexican woman accidentally killed by a race car driver. He ends the album with the straightforward message of "Just Live Your Life," reminding us that no matter whether your days on earth are long or short, you should make every second count. It's a sentiment related so often it should be a meaningless cliché, but coming after the tragic tales of the rest of the album, it sounds fresh, even necessary. The same could be said for Taylor's career, as he carries on the blues tradition while adding his own vision. Respect the Dead is the culmination of that vision and, like White African, one of the most vital blues albums in years. Michael Toland [buy it]
For fans of: Junior Kimbrough, John Lee Hooker, Son House
