Telarc

Unlike so many contemporary blues artists, Otis Taylor doesn’t play party music. There’s a purity, depth and scholarliness to his blues that doesn’t incite whoopin’ it up so much as it does firing up the old brain synapses. And while there isn’t anything retro about him, Taylor’s topical songs serve as a living link to the blues’ earlier role as a broadside telling of dark experiences and painful existences. Contraband’s frank, provocative tales and edge-straddling song craft push the very definition of the genre. Topics like war, Jim Crow and slavery are hardly common to modern blues, but they’re home to Taylor. Syncopated rhythm, reiterating phrases and a deliberate lack of melodic variation have earned his music the tag “trance blues,” and Taylor employs the technique successfully to keep the listener riveted.