ON SALE NOW
CONTRABAND
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"Songs on the album again tell tales of love, loss, injustice, inequality, and war but Taylor doesn't consider his music an act of activism, but of art...Contraband is again built on a foundation of traditional blues sounds, styles, and structures and the unusual rhythmic and instrumental sounds that have become the hallmark of Taylor's sound."
Blinded By Sound
OTIS INTERVIEW ON NPR
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Otis Taylor does an interview for the "Here and Now" program on NPR February 14, 2012.
REVIEWS FOR CONTRABAND
NEW YORKER MAGAZINE
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2/13/12 LISTENING BOOTH: THE PUNCH BROTHERS AND MORE
Posted by John Donohue
Otis Taylor, a blues singer, guitarist, and banjo player who was born in Chicago and raised in Denver, started in music in the late sixties and seventies, and then gave it up for a while to become an antiques dealer. He came roaring back with ten albums in the last ten years, though, and his new one, ’ÄúOtis Taylor’Äôs Contraband,’Äù is full of sharply rendered songs about a wide range of subjects, including the Jim Crow era, slavery, and romance. Listen to ’ÄúNever Been to Africa.’Äù
Posted by John Donohue
Otis Taylor, a blues singer, guitarist, and banjo player who was born in Chicago and raised in Denver, started in music in the late sixties and seventies, and then gave it up for a while to become an antiques dealer. He came roaring back with ten albums in the last ten years, though, and his new one, ’ÄúOtis Taylor’Äôs Contraband,’Äù is full of sharply rendered songs about a wide range of subjects, including the Jim Crow era, slavery, and romance. Listen to ’ÄúNever Been to Africa.’Äù
DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE - EDITOR'S PICK
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Otis Taylor has a grand sense of concept, setting, mood and place. He’Äôs a thinking-man’Äôs bluesman with a voice of deep emotion and soul. On Contraband, there’Äôs rawness that might be attributed to Taylor’Äôs own tale of life under difficult conditions. BY FRANK ALKYER
MOJO MAGAZINE - 4 STARS
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The Chicago bluesman's unique balancing act goes on. "A new album has to be different, but you can't too different." Fred Dellar
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