Otis Taylor – Below The Fold

It’s not for nothing that Otis Taylor has amassed a large cache of W.C. Handy nominations since turning his sights fully on music in the mid-’90s. With a hybrid style that blends traditional country blues and Appalachian music, Taylor composes and executes his material in a manner that’s primal and innovative at the same time. Using offbeat instrumentation (banjo, cello, trumpet) along with guitar and harmonica, Taylor arranges his compositions in a way that relies partly on repetition and drone to achieve a smoldering power.

Below The Fold, his seventh album, rates among his finest. While adhering to the “trance-blues” for which he’s become known, Taylor continues to find ways to incorporate new flourishes into his music. “Roy Plays Mandolin”, for instance, is fueled not just by Taylor’s fast-strummed mandolin, but also by the freeform jazz trumpeting of Ron Miles. Similarly, “Your Children Sleep Good Tonight” weaves together cello, fiddle and organ to create a hypnotic Native American vibe. And on the light acoustic stomp “Working For The Pullman Company”, Taylor turns the vocals over entirely to his daughter Cassie, whose lovely, whisper-in-your-ear approach contrasts sharply with Taylor’s husky baritone.

Lyrically, Taylor continues to eschew woman-done-me-wrong themes in favor of darker lamentations frequently gleaned from little-known historic events. Often these themes have to do with oppression, strife, and socio-political wrongdoing, but to Taylor’s credit, nowhere does he come off as proselytizing. Instead, in the best songwriting tradition, he uncovers the universal within the specific.