Personalities | Otis Taylor | Contemporary Era | Jazz & Blues

(Guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, vocals, b. 1948)

Colorado’s Otis Taylor is the most inventive blues songwriter to emerge in recent decades. The Chicago native revives the genre’s role as protest music, often telling stories of lynchings, racial injustice and homelessness. His use of archaic Appalachian banjo tunings, droning progressions and digital delay creates a sound that reflects the blues’ African roots and echoes 1960s psychedelia. It is a wise, timeless combination, best captured on his potent albums Respect The Dead (2002) and Truth Is Not Fiction (2003).

Styles & Forms | Contemporary Era | Jazz & Blues
Personalities | Susan Tedeschi | Contemporary Era | Jazz & Blues

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

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