Jazz and Blues Lounge

The Banjo Bluesman: Otis Taylor

by balaspa on June 5th, 2008

Well, the 25th Annual Chicago Blues Festival kicked off officially today. I did not get a chance to go downtown and see the concerts today because I have this, you know, job thing to take care of. However, thanks to radio station WXRT I was able to listen to performers from the Blues Festival. XRT is a great radio station and they still play a lot of blues music.

Tonight they had a show celebrating the start of the Blues Festival and it was at Buddy Guy’s Legends. Buddy Guy was performing, but the one guy who stood out was a guy named Otis Taylor. Man, Otis plays the banjo and he rocks the joint. He played three tunes in a row, including one with Buddy and it was thumping out of my car enough to make my ears bleed.

So, here is Otis Taylor’s MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/tranceblues

Otis has a new album out called “Reclaiming the Banjo.” He said during the performance that the banjo, as an instrument, originated in Africa so, that is why he is reclaiming it. I have not done the research necessary to find out if that is true, but you can look up “banjo” on Wikipedia as well as I can.

POSTED IN: Bands, Chicago, Festivals, blues, records