Product Description

Otis Taylor is a critically acclaimed American blues artist who blends blues, rock, and trance blues – in his own words, “to take you on a journey”. His songs typically illuminate the themes of injustice, particularly racism, poverty, the darkness that gives birth to murder, and the unrelenting desire for redemption. Taylor has been performing Hey Joe—written by folk artist Billy Roberts and covered by many—during his live shows since 1995 and chose to use his own artistic version as a framework for this opus surrounding eight of his own songs which, Taylor states, “explore the decisions we make and how they affect us”. Having recorded his last five albums in Pure DSD, we know Otis is a fan of the DSD technology and has enthusiastically endorsed this reissue, particularly during these challenging times. You do not want to miss out on this limited reissue mastered for SACD, now available for the first time as a direct-to-master version from Octave Records.
Hey Joe (A) | |
Sunday Morning (A) | |
My Heart is a Muscle (used for the blues) | |
Red Meat | |
Peggy Lee | |
They Wore Blue | |
Hey Joe (B) | |
Sunday Morning (B) | |
Cold at Midnight | |
Sunday Morning (C) | |
This is one direct-to-master recording you don’t want to miss out on. Each track is a sonic treasure available as a direct-to-master exclusively from Octave Records.
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.

Honoring the Music and Those Who Make It
Our mission at Octave Records™ is simple – respect musicians by paying them fairly, and respect their music by bringing it to life in the highest-quality possible.
Too often, musicians have to absorb the costs of production, leaving them little or any earnings – or even putting them in debt. And the quality of their recordings end up in last place. We at PS Audio and Octave Records are dedicated to correcting these inequities.
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Octave Records is dedicated to offering the highest-quality recordings in high-resolution formats including pure DSD on SACD , as well as 192kHz PCM. Located in Boulder, Colorado, Octave utilizes the world’s finest studio equipment, based around the acclaimed Sonoma™ DSD recording, mixing, and mastering system. Gus Skinas, our world-renowned mastering engineer, has hundreds of album credits and helped design the Sonoma system.