Otis Taylor Recaptures the Banjo

03.21.2008 -- Feature by: C. Eric Banister

AR: I saw on your Web site some pictures of you playing at an elementary school. Do you enjoy doing the educational stuff?

OT: Yeah, I call my blues in school “Writing the Blues” and I teach kids how to write the blues then they perform it with me. I think if you want to keep the blues alive you’ve got to get to the kids. Those are the future blues fans, so I go in to the schools and expose them to it. You might play for thirty kids and one kid will really like it and one day go out and buy a blues album.

Does that come from growing up going to the Folklore Center?

Yeah, I learned to play music at the Denver Folklore Center, but my wife thought of the idea; it was her idea about the blues in school, because we had kids and I wanted to go into the school and do it for my kids. I just kept on going.

Do you get a pretty good response from the kids when you’re there?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but they’re a tough audience. They’re not your fans. You’re going into hostile territory. Everything’s fun for five minutes with kids, but after that you better get their attention.

I do it at universities, too; I do it at colleges. University of Washington, University of Colorado, Tallahassee, University of Florida; I’ve done it at a lot of Universities.

Is it a similar format?

Same format, actually. I discuss the history of the blues and how it came from sadness and everybody has sadness, so write down what makes them sad. I tell them anybody can write a song.

I notice when you do these you start with the banjo and discuss its African roots. Do you play some of the songs that you’ve included on your new project, Recapturing the Banjo?

The songs on that project are songs I have been playing all my life.

There are great artists on the new album like Alvin Youngblood Hart and Corey Harris. Are they old friends of yours?

Yeah, I knew them. I once did a workshop with Alvin Youngblood Hart and John Jackson, I think it was 1998 or ’99, in the summer, and that’s when the idea came to me to do an album. Then I discussed it again in 2001 with Alvin. Then in about 2005 I started really thinking about it again. In 2006 we were in the studio.

When it came time to choose the songs, what kind of process did you go through?

I don’t know, we just… We had a lot of songs we didn’t use, like 6 or more songs we didn’t use. The process was I bring something to the table, we try to work them out and then we see what [works]. Then I have to make a decision on which ones to put on the album. Everyone recorded at the studio except for Keb Mo. I had to take him all the tapes, but I was there when he was taping. I said, which songs do you want to play on and he’d say I think I there is room for this or room for that and then he’d play on those songs.

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Your daughter plays a lot on this album…

She plays a lot on all my albums. I wanted her to play banjo on it, but she wouldn’t do it. I kept trying to talk her into it, she plays piano and bass, but I couldn’t talk her into it. I thought it would be really cool if she would. If she’d wanted to do it she could have learned in two weeks, she just that quick. But she’s a really good singer and a really good bass player, so why not use her? Didn’t she do a good job? If you were a producer wouldn’t you use her?

Is there a solo project in her future?

She’s not ready for a career, she doesn’t… she’s not ready yet, she doesn’t really care. She says, “as soon as I get my band together.” She’s had managers call her and record companies, ready for when she decides to do something. They’re all still waiting (laughs). They’ve been waiting for three years, so we’ll see what happens. I don’t even think about it anymore, you know? She has to do that, she has to go out and play in front of 20 people and hone your trade. We’ll see what happens.

Yeah, that would be tough to do, to kind of wade in there…

Or she could go play with her father in front of thousands of people without doing anything. That’s the problem: she can play in front of those people without having to work very hard at it. If she goes off on her own, that’s a whole other thing.

So you’ve got her spoiled…

I don’t know, I just keep them waiting. What can I say, you know? Like, she could completely eclipse my career. People would call and say, “we want to talk to the father of Cassie Taylor.” That would be the phone calls; they wouldn’t be about me anymore if she decides to go for it.

You got out of the music business for quite a while…

Nineteen years, yeah.

What made you want to get back into it?

It was kind of an accident. In the ‘80s I was involved with bicycle racing. I had a team called the Buccaneer Team, which was the clothing store line in Colorado. They had eight stores. In the ‘90s he went bankrupt. He only sponsored teams for three and a half years in the ‘80s, in the ‘90s went bankrupt and I ran into him and he said, “I’m going to open up a coffeehouse and have music. Would you help me get a PA system?” I told him I would help him get a PA system and I’ll call some guys to come play, ‘cause he’s such a sweet person. So I did and one thing led to another thing and I was back in it again.

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Your music has a definite sound and style to it. Do you have problems with people trying to put it into categories? Is that kind of frustrating?

Well, it’s not difficult to me; it’s just difficult for the people trying to put it in to categories. (laughs) It’s always Otis Taylor music no matter what. I call it trance blues to make it easier for people. It’s kind of trance-y and bluesy.

That’s something I thought was interesting about this project is that a lot of old banjo and old-timey music has a real trance-like quality to it.

It always did. Banjo was my first instrument and how I got into the whole mentality. African music…See, the banjo came from Africa, you just track the roots. It was played in an open tuning, used with drones and used as a storytelling instrument, and dancing. That’s what Appalachian people do, they use it to tell stories. Appalachian music doesn’t have a lot of chord changes, so it’s very African in that way. Nobody thinks about that much, but just look at the style it’s done in the same form in a lot of ways.

Is that something important to you, to get out the history of the banjo that people have either forgotten or ignored?

Yes, it’s very important, that’s why I’m doing this. That’s why there’s a 1,500-word essay [included]. How many record companies would tell you to go to another record company to buy a record? I don’t think too many. That’s not a common thing. [editor’s note: the liner notes contain a discography of recommended albums.]

That is something I liked, not only the list of recommended albums, but the list of recommended books.

Yeah, we’re not just trying to sell records, we’re trying to help educate people and help them understand it in the process what happened. It’s a very heavy-duty thing. There was this music that came from another country, from slaves. The banjo was basically turned into the blues and the blues turned out to be one of the biggest things America ever offered the world, blues and jazz. That’s American. Like country and the cowboys, but the cowboys came from Mexico. What’s more American than the blues and jazz?

When you first got into music you got into folk and country?

More so Folk, not as much country, but a lot of Folk and Appalachian.

Did the appreciation for the history of the banjo begin that early or did it come years later?

I didn’t know the banjo came from Africa until about fifteen years ago. That’s why it was so important to do the album because I didn’t even know. It was really sad that I didn’t even know that. I don’t just want white people to know, I want black people to know, I want Chinese people to know, I want everyone to have the chance to know that this was something they offered to the world. Just like peanut butter, you know? That’s my little goal. The more people hear it and the more they see it, the more they’ll think about it. It’s important for people to know that, I think. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe nothing’s important. You could take that stand, but if anything’s important, that’s important to know. And some people know and don’t particularly want to let other people know. You look at any of these guys and they tell you how much black people and the blues have influenced them, but you don’t hear about it that much from the bluegrass guys. They’ll talk about it, but they didn’t champion any black banjo players. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing; it’s a cultural thing. Elvis caught a lot of shit for that, too. They said he was playing black music. It was just the time of history.

You write a lot of songs from a historical perspective and talk about topics that others might not want to touch…

That’s because I don’t care if I sell records. That’s what that is. And those are stories that not everyone wants to hear all the time. And I don’t care; well, I don’t’ care enough, put it that way. That’s why I do it. I’m a storyteller, so why not tell an interesting story.

You will be doing a series of shows in Europe. How do they respond to this material and the history of it?

Put it this way, I sell more records there than I do here, if that answers the question.

Why do you think that is?

I call it a two-edged compliment. They are used to studying other cultures because they conquered other cultures and they took their art back to their city, so they embrace other cultures artistry. That’s part of the European colonialism. Take the country and take the beautiful things out of the country, like their art, their gold, their culture and study it and control it. It’s part of colonialist mentality, they’re used to doing that. They’re cultures are so old and their countries are so close together they have more interest in other cultures. They have a history of doing that. Just as we have a fascination with American Indians, because we conquered them. We read about them, we collect their art. So Europe has conquered so many countries that World music is way bigger there than it is here. That’s how I view it.