Customer Reviews
Don't be put off - By: Hazydaze, 23 Jun 2008 
Being an Otis fan I was immediately going to buy this, but had a listen to the sample listings & it put me off for a few weeks. Then I decided I'll get it regardless. It does take a bit of listening too in my opinion & there are one or two covers that I'm still not sure about, & tend to skip them. However, none the less it is a very good album & I am glad that I bought it.
And if you like this, I can highly recommend Roscoe Holcomb - An Untamed Sense of Control. Amazon recommended this whilst doing a search for similar artists like Otis.
It does what is says on the cover - and how! - By: Auld Uncle Jeff, 08 Jun 2008 
A diverse, yet coherent album by the cream of contemporary country blues & ethnic "roots" music featuring the banjo played in different styles ( although not bluegrass ) & songs traditional to contemporary.
Many people think of the banjo they imagine the shuffling minstrel, often a white person in blackface, or an Appalachian hillbilly, from a limited gene pool, playing tunes of Irish or Scottish heritage.
The banjo is derived from instruments still played in West Africa by the griots, the traditional storytellers & musicians of that area who had an esteemed role in those ancient societies similar to the medieval troubadours or celtic bards.
I am a fan of old-time music & world music played on traditional instruments. I've grown to love some of these old North American field recordings, although I realize they are a taste that most won't want to aspire to. Like many fans of old time music I thought that African-American banjo playing would die out with the last of the old timers in the backwoods of the South-East U.S. Only Taj Mahal & Sparky Rucker play occasional banjo & Taj's most banjo heavy recording, the soundtrack to the film "Sounder" is hard to obtain ( it took me 25 years of searching to get a copy - well worth the effort though! ).
Well I'm glad to say I was wrong. The album features contributions from some of the most respected country blues musicians performing today - Alvin Youngblood Hart, Guy Davis, Corey Hart, Keb Mo' & Otis Taylor, & Don Vappie, who plays for a Traditional New Orleans-style jazz band in his day job, sharing their singing & instrumental talents from traditional songs like "Lil Liza Jane" & "Deep Blue Sea" to a version of "Hey Joe" that would give Jimi Hendrix's version a run for its money. There's a Creole children's song, sung in French naturellement, a recapturing of the 60s hit "Walk Right In"( well, it was written by a black banjo player ) & songs about cowboys, Native Americans, racism & much more. No album made by blues musicians would be complete without a song about substance abuse. "Absinthe" is the drug du jour & some wicked cornet playing by guest musician Ron Miles reallly conveys a sense of paranoia & delerium. One of the album's many achievements is despite the diversity of topics & styles there's a thematic quality to the whole work & it gives a sense of satisfaction that the best concept albums deliver. The album opens with a song about a black man on the run from the Klan, rarely has the rolling sound of the banjo been used more effectively to convey the sense of urgency in flight the hero of the song needs, & finishes with some gentle homespun philosophy written & sung by Keb Mo'.
If you like early Taj Mahal, like the work of the musicians featured or you think there could be more to the banjo than the themes from the "Beverley Hillbillies" & "Deliverance" then this platter may be worth checking out.
Catch this little darling - By: M. Lawrence, 24 Apr 2008 My girlfriend bought this for me, knowing that I like blues. And that's essentiallly what this is, a blues album. Tracks such as 'Prophet's mission' have the syncopated rolling beats of trace blues that are the north missisipi roots of becomes R&B in the modern puff daddy etc sense.
Suprises such as 'Bow Legged Charlie' reminds me of Ray Charles in his western mode - indeed, the same Ray Charles of the piano blues & blues brothers released several country & western albums in the 70s & some tracks here are similar in flavour, a funkified country music that reclaims the influence that black musicians had on the earliest white country folk.
Indeed, 'recapturing the banjo' is alll about that - the sleeve notes describe how the Banjo originated as an African instrument & was appropriated by white players. Ths will come a suprise to those (myself included) who assumed that the banjo was the either the preserve of pink faced yodelling cowboys or hairy appalachian rednecks.
This is an album demonstrating that the banjo is indeed as funky as a purple telecaster - or a depression era Gibson 6 string. Anyone not convinced by this hypothesis should listen to tracks such as 'five hundred roses' & bear in mind the similarity to Tinariwen (the North African supergroup with fans like Robert Plant & Carlos Santana). Both employ the banjo or banjo like instruments as a counterpoint to the dry soil thrubbing of a trance blues rhythm section. Yet Unlike Tinariwen, Otis delivers lyrics in English, which add to the hypnotic effect, the repetition & affirmation that gives blues much of it's power.
Honestly, buy it - pour yourself a coffee & kick back, & grab the blues, OOOwwwyes.
