Blues in a Heavy Trance

Colorado guitarist Otis Taylor can play the blues, but he’s never content to just repeat the same old 16 bars. His latest opens with a cover of  “Hey Joe” that quickly displays the album’s reach, as violinist Anne Harris answers his vocals, cornetist Ron Miles adds a melancholy solo, and Gov’t Mule’s Warren Haynes wails on guitar. The song’s middle section finds the players interweaving in a hypnotic instrumental whose crescendo gives way to a shell-shocked vocal that’s equal parts grief and defiance.. The song coasts to a stop as it segues into the instrumental “Sunday Morning,” and it’s here that the album’s psychedelic flavors take hold. The driving rhythm at the song’s center is embroidered by echoed guitar and insistent cornet lines, driving the song into prog rock and fusion territory.

“Hey Joe” appears again in a second arrangement that features a vocal from Langhorne Slim. The song’s story of decisions and consequence provides the album’s theme; as Taylor writes “sometimes you take the love, sometimes the love takes you.” There’s inevitability in the gender transition of “Peggy Lee,” and the escape of “Hey Joe” is seen from the other side in “Cold at Midnight.” The album’s most straightforward blues, “The Heart is a Muscle (Used for the Blues),” features a throbbing bassline that boldly underlines the lyrics’ eroticism. Taylor’s music is so personally idiosyncratic that it’s difficult to compare with anyone else. But he has kindred souls, such as Taj Mahal, with whom he shares a taste for adventure and the artistic dexterity to capitalize on deep musical knowledge. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

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