Bluesman cuts to the heart

PALMER -- A packed Vagabond Blues crowd sipped espresso drinks last Monday night and nibbled pastries while seasoned Colorado bluesman Otis Taylor called forth images of the "sad people from the sad side of town."

"My mamma is goin' die," he groaned into the microphone, "and I'm a man, I don't wanna cry."

Alternating between banjo, guitar and mandolin, Taylor filled the little coffeehouse with pounding rhythms, enticing people to tap their winter galoshes and nod their heads with understanding and disbelief.

In the classic roots tradition, Taylor's songs featured a cast of striking and often tragic characters. Slave women, murderers, sailors and the devil himself walked through the songs.

With a deep and sometimes prophetic voice, Taylor took the audience on a foot-stomping romp through the storms of life, looking up occasionally through scowling gray eyes.

"People ask me why I sing about all these sad things," he said. "I'm a bluesman, that's what we do. Sometimes the blues is about mourning somebody."

There was a lighter side to the performance, however. After each song he'd tip his orange baseball hat and smile. Like a laid-back grandpa, he would play with the crowd and tell jokes until people were laughing out loud. Then he'd wade back into the darkness.

At one point, Taylor got everyone to make the sound of a train whistle as he blew through a solo harmonica. He seduced the unwitting audience into the heart of the blues.

As the crowd continued to belt out train whistles, he asked, "You like my new band? It's cheap labor."

They laughed and kept on going. This was music that pounded through the veins.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.