Any
description of Recapturing the
Banjo feels inaccurate.
It was released under the name of trance-blues artist Otis Taylor yet is more of an all-star collaboration, featuring Guy Davis, Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb' Mo', and Don Vappie on the titular instrument.
Yet that description would suggest an album dominated by the banjo, and overloaded with it, when the reality is that the instrument is merely an accent on some tracks, including "Hey Joe," with a ringing electric-guitar solo closer to Hendrix than anything traditional.
And despite the somewhat confrontational title, Taylor said last week that his intent was not political. Instead, he simply wanted to correct a common misunderstanding: "Most people don't know the banjo came from Africa. They associate the banjo with white people," he said. "You see old pictures of blacks on the plantation with banjos, but all of a sudden it got erased or something."
And he's not faulting people for their ignorance. "I didn't know the banjo came from Africa until about 15 years ago," he said.
Taylor, who will be bringing Davis, Vappie, and his daughter Cassie Taylor (on bass) with him to the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, first had the idea for a black-banjo project a decade ago. But he shelved it. "I was nobody then," he said. "History has to do with movement and timing."
A few years later, Hart showed enthusiasm for the prospect, but Taylor still wasn't ready. He wanted to invite Taj Mahal, he said, but "I wasn't strong enough to make the phone calls."
The banjo was just one of many instruments Taylor, who turns 60 later this month, was attracted to as a youth. He said he tried to play bagpipes as a child, and joked that one of his gifts is that "I can play five songs on everything, and nobody else can, so I get work."
The banjo appears on all his records, and he sees Recapturing the Banjo as a natural extension of trance blues and African music; none has many chord changes. "It's like going in a giant circle," he said. "It's just custom-made for me."
He initally made a name for himself with songs concerned with social justice and appropriately provocative album titles (When Negroes Walked the Earth in 2000 and White African in 2001), but he's quick to point out that he's not a historian, particularly about the banjo. He said he simply mines history for the stories it provides. "I'm just your average, everyday black person," he said.
The project that would become Recapturing the Banjo came to fruition in 2006, with 20 tracks recorded in three sessions - even though he couldn't connect with Taj Mahal. The final 14-cut record - which is heavy with Taylor originals but also includes traditional tunes and songwriting contributions from Hart and Mo' - was released in February.
It starts with "Ran So Hard the Sun Went Down," with its quartet of banjos, and ends with "The Way It Goes," with Mo' and his banjo accompanied only by Taylor on guitar.
"It sort of started very frantic ... and ended with one banjo," Taylor said. "A man and his banjo - back to the beginning."
Even though it was designed as a showcase for the banjo and its players, Taylor was careful to craft an album, rather than a collection of songs, he said.
"All my albums have beginnings and ends," Taylor said. "I try to take people on journeys."
So "Hey Joe," even though the banjo plays only a supporting role, is an example of the instrument's versatility. And it's a palette-cleanser. "I wanted a sorbet," Taylor explained. "I wanted something to kind of give a break." The nearly psychedelic electric blues of "Five Hundred Roses" is followed by the decidedly old-time traditional "Les Ognons," on which you can virtually smell New Orleans.
While the record was a longtime dream, Taylor admitted that performing live as an ensemble remains a challenge, with so many different artists and managers. "It was hard to get people to tour together," he said. "It was really a management nightmare."
At the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival, expect the group to perform roughly four-fifths of the record, and also expect the same attention to the concert experience that Taylor brings to his records. "We put on a good concert," he said. "It still isn't banjo dominated."
