Hey Joe | Red Meat

Otis Taylor was born in
Chicago in 1948 and was raised in Denver’s historic Five Points
neighborhood. His father worked as a Pullman porter. Both parents were
jazz fans. As a teenager, Taylor drew musical inspiration from the
Denver Folklore Center, where he first heard blues artists like Muddy
Waters and John Lee Hooker. There he learned to play banjo, guitar, and
harmonica and then formed a band called the Butterscotch Fire Department
and later the Otis Taylor Blues Band. Taylor moved to Boulder when the
1960s counterculture movement was going strong. After a 20-year hiatus
from performing to work at selling art and antiques, Taylor returned to
music in 1995 and immediately began to garner attention as a unique
voice in the blues genre. Press coverage in Rolling Stone, The New
Yorker, NPR, CNN and other media validated him as an important
songwriter and producer. He earned a fellowship to the Sundance
Composers Laboratory in 2001 and followed up in 2002 with a Blues Music
Award for Best New Artist Debut. Taylor helped raise awareness of the
African roots of the banjo with his collaborative 2008 recording
Recapturing the Banjo. With a total of 5 Downbeat critics awards among
his many honors as well as his music featured in major motion pictures,
perhaps his most rewarding recognition was being included in the
inaugural exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of African
American History and Culture in 2016. Recently he was inducted into the
Colorado Music Hall of Fame. A resident of Boulder since 1967, Taylor
gives back to the community with his annual Trance Blues Festival. While
establishing his trademark Trance Blues style, Otis Taylor has become
one of the few musicians in the world to address serious issues
including racial injustice with a passionate and original voice.