Otis Taylor and the Electrics

Otis Taylor and the Electrics is the powerful new recording from internationally acclaimed bluesman Otis Taylor, captured live in Octave Records’ world-class DSD studios. A commanding voice in contemporary blues, Taylor brings together his full ensemble—Nick Amodeo (bass, mandolin), Brian Juan (organ), Callum Bair (lead guitar), Fara Tolno (djembe), and Tobias Juniel (drums)—for a session that channels the raw immediacy of a live performance with the sonic precision of a studio masterwork.

The album’s eight tracks form a deeply human song cycle, each rooted in truth and storytelling. “Three Stripes on a Cadillac” remembers a tragedy at the Carrera Panamericana and the compassion that followed. “Ran So Hard the Sun Went Down” traces a desperate escape through the Jim Crow South, while “Blue-Eyed Monster” and “Zig Zag Man” explore myth, restlessness, and survival with Taylor’s hypnotic trance-blues rhythm at their core. “Five Hundred Roses,” featuring cellists Beth Rosbach and Kimberlee Hanto, mourns lost love with haunting beauty, while “Hold My Hand” and “They Don’t Want Me” reveal the quiet ache of isolation and yearning. “Twelve String Mile” closes the set with solemn grace—a portrait of injustice both historical and eternal.

Recorded and mixed in high-resolution DSD by the Octave Records engineering team, Otis Taylor and the Electrics captures the unfiltered energy, grit, and soul of a master artist surrounded by musicians who share his fearless spirit. It is a living, breathing blues record—urgent, emotional, and unmistakably Otis Taylor.

About Otis Taylor

Otis Taylor is one of the most original and important voices in modern blues. Born in Chicago and raised in Denver, he began his career in the late 1960s, fusing traditional forms with modern social consciousness and poetic storytelling. His work defies boundaries—melding blues, folk, jazz, and trance into a sound critics have called “haunting,” “revelatory,” and “entirely his own.”

Over a decades-long career, Taylor has released a string of acclaimed albums including White African, Definition of a Circle, and Recapturing the Banjo, earning multiple Blues Music Awards and widespread international recognition. His songs often address race, identity, and human struggle with unflinching honesty, using repetition, groove, and open space to draw listeners into an almost spiritual experience.

A multi-instrumentalist and storyteller at heart, Taylor performs on guitar, banjo, and harmonica, fronting an evolving ensemble of extraordinary players whose chemistry gives his music its signature power. With Otis Taylor and the Electrics, he continues his lifelong exploration of the blues as both art form and testimony—an artist still expanding the language of American music.