Otis Taylor | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Otis Taylor |
Born | Chicago, Illinois, United States | July 30, 1948
Genres | Blues, jazz |
Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica |
Years active | pre-1977, 1995–present |
Labels | Telarc International Corporation, NorthernBlues Music, Shoelace Music |
Website | Otistaylor.com |
Otis Taylor (born July 30, 1948, [1] Chicago, Illinois, United States) is an American blues musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist whose talents include the guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and vocals. In 2001, he was awarded a fellowship to the Sundance Film Composers Laboratory.
Taylor was born in Chicago and moved at a young age to Denver, Colorado, where he grew up. He originally grew up playing the banjo, but his father wanted him to be a jazz musician. Upon hearing that the banjo was almost exclusively used for white bluegrass instrument in part through the derogatory black-face minstrel shows of the 19th century, Taylor dropped the banjo and began to focus solely on the guitar and harmonica. He played music professionally both in Europe and the United States in a variety of blues-oriented bands, including Zephyr, until 1977, when he left the music industry for other pursuits, including becoming an antique dealer.
Taylor returned to music in 1995, and as of 2015, has released fourteen blues albums. His music tends to focus on the hard realities of life, especially relating to the black community. Some common themes in his music are murder, racism, poverty and the need for redemption. To date, Taylor has twelve Blues Music Awards nominations while White African was named 'Best Artist Debut'. [2]
Down Beat magazine critics' Poll named Taylor's Truth is Not Fiction as Blues CD of the Year for 2002.
Living Blues readers' poll awarded Taylor (along with Etta James) the "Best Blues Entertainer" title in 2004. Down Beat named Taylor's Double V as Blues CD of the Year for 2005. Down Beat named Definition of a Circle as Blues CD of the Year for 2007. They also then named Recapturing the Banjo as "Blues CD of the Year, 2008."
His 2008 effort, Recapturing the Banjo, was an attempt to reconnect himself and the world with the true African origins of the banjo. [3] "There may not be," claimed Down Beat in a review, "a better roots album released this year or decade than Recapturing the Banjo."
Taylor was the opening act on six different European tours with Irish musician Gary Moore and played on his last album. [4]
In May 2009, Taylor won a Blues Music Award for his banjo playing. [5] He held the first Trance Blues Festival in Boulder, Colorado, in November 2010. [6]
Taylor's 2015 release Hey Joe Opus/Red Meat was editor's choice for album of the year in Blues Music Magazine and Premier Guitar Magazine. [7] It was named "Album of the Year" by Blues411 and #2 by Twangville, and one of the top 30 albums of the year by The Blues magazine (UK).[ citation needed ]Down Beat gave it 4 and half stars and listed it as one of their top 100 albums of the year.[ citation needed ]
Taylor was expelled from high school in 1966 for refusing to cut his hair and was given his diploma in 2023. [16]
He has two daughters, one of whom is Cassie Taylor, also a musical collaborator.
John Brumwell Mayall was an English blues and rock musician, songwriter and producer. In the 1960s, he formed John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians. A singer, guitarist, harmonica player, and keyboardist, he had a career that spanned nearly seven decades, remaining an active musician until his death aged 90. Mayall has often been referred to as the "godfather of the British blues", and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category in 2024.
Ryland Peter Cooder is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.
Johnny Shuggie Otis is an American singer-songwriter, recording artist, and multi-instrumentalist.
Kevin Roosevelt Moore, known as Keb' Mo', is an American blues musician. He is a singer, guitarist and songwriter, living in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been described as "a living link to the seminal Delta blues that travelled up the Mississippi River and across the expanse of America." His post-modern blues style is influenced by many eras and genres, including folk, rock, jazz, pop and country. The moniker "Keb Mo" was coined by his original drummer, Quentin Dennard, and picked up by his record label as a "street talk" abbreviation of his given name.
Tommy Castro is an American blues, R&B, and rock guitarist and singer. He has been recording since the mid-1990s. His music has taken him from local stages to national and international touring. His popularity was marked by his winning the 2008 Blues Music Award for Entertainer of the Year.
Tab Benoit is an American blues guitarist, musician, and singer. His playing combines a number of blues styles, primarily Delta blues.
Louis Joseph Walker Jr., known as Joe Louis Walker, is an American musician, best known as an electric blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. His knowledge of blues history is revealed by his use of older material and playing styles.
Tinsley Ellis is an American blues and rock musician, who was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and grew up in South Florida. According to Billboard, "nobody has released more consistently excellent blues albums than Atlanta's Tinsley Ellis. He sings like a man possessed and wields a mean lead guitar."
Matthew Tyler Murphy, known as Matt "Guitar" Murphy, was an American blues guitarist. He was associated with Memphis Slim, The Blues Brothers and Howlin' Wolf. In 2012, Murphy was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame.
Eric Charles Bibb is a Grammy-nominated American-born blues singer and songwriter.
Sue Foley is a Canadian blues guitarist and singer. She has released 15 albums since her debut with Young Girl Blues (1992). In May 2020, Foley won her first Blues Music Award, in the 'Koko Taylor Award ' category.
The Greenhornes were an American garage rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio, formed in 1996 by vocalist/guitarist Craig Fox, bass guitarist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler. They released their debut album Gun For You in 1999, followed by a self-titled album in 2001. A third studio album, Dual Mono, was released in 2002, with the band taking a small hiatus. The Greenhornes returned in 2005 to release a new EP, East Grand Blues, and a compilation album, Sewed Soles. During this time, Lawrence and Keeler formed The Raconteurs with Detroit musicians and personal friends Jack White and Brendan Benson, leaving very few performances and interaction with Fox. In 2010, the band reunited once again to record a studio album, Four Stars, their first in eight years.
Ty Taylor is an American musician best known for being the lead singer of Los Angeles soul rock band Vintage Trouble. He is the voice of character Lester Grimes on the HBO series Vinyl created by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger. Taylor has two songs, "Cha Cha Twist" and "The World Is Yours," featured on the 2016 soundtrack album Vinyl: Music from the HBO Original Series, Volume 1. He was formerly the guitarist and vocalist of R&B group Dakota Moon and was also a contestant on the reality TV show Rock Star: INXS.
Charlie Parr is an American country blues musician. Born in Austin, Minnesota, he spent part of his childhood in Hollandale before starting his music career in Duluth. His influences include Charlie Patton, Bukka White, Reverend Gary Davis, Dave Van Ronk, Mississippi John Hurt, and his self-professed "hero" "Spider" John Koerner. He plays a Mule resonator, National resonator guitar, a fretless open-back banjo, and a twelve-string guitar, often in the Piedmont blues style. He is divorced from Emily Parr, who occasionally adds vocals to his music. He has two children.
Harvey Reid is an American musician living in York, Maine. He won the 1981 National Fingerpicking Guitar Competition and the 1982 International Autoharp competition. In 1996, Acoustic Guitar magazine listed Reid's album Steel Drivin' Man as one of the top 10 essential folk albums/CDs of all time. He has 19 records available from Woodpecker Records.
Bad for You Baby is the seventeenth solo album by Northern Irish blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Gary Moore, the last album to be released in his lifetime, and the last album until 2021's How Blue Can You Get.
Moreland & Arbuckle was an American electric blues/roots rock trio. Moreland described their music as "gritty blues and roots rock from the heartland." After six previous releases, the band signed with Alligator Records in 2015. The label debut, Promised Land Or Bust, was released on May 6, 2016, and was produced by Matt Bayles. In April 2017, the band announced their break-up.
E.G. Kight is an American Chicago blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. She has worked with many musicians, including George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard, Luther Allison, Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins, Taj Mahal, B.B. King, and Koko Taylor. Kight has recorded seven albums to date and received several nominations for Blues Music Awards, in the categories Contemporary Female Artist and Song of the Year.
Cassie Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and blues musician. She started her career in the early 2000s touring as a bassist for her father Otis Taylor, a trance blues musician. Taylor released a positively received solo album, Out of my Mind, in 2013, which infused traditional Delta blues with genres as diverse as electronica, indie rock, and psychedelia. Based in Kansas City, Missouri as of 2013, they are also a model and fashion designer.
Respect the Dead is an album by the American musician Otis Taylor, released in 2002. Taylor supported the album with North American tour. Respect the Dead was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award for best contemporary blues album.