Sometimes you can convey as much emotion in a grunt or sigh as you can via lyrics and instrumental notes. It's about a mood and an image joining together to form a total image. Like a work or art, it's open to interpretation.
That's the way Otis Taylor likes it. He admits he's not the greatest musician, but he sees himself as an artist. Instead of lyrics, the liner notes of his CDs contains a sentence by each song, letting the listener know what it's about. From there, he hopes each person will create their own story.
"It's like a decoder ring," Taylor says by phone from his Colorado home. "I'm not preaching anything or telling them what to think. Here's a story -- use your imagination to figure out what it's really about. It's like a painter -- you just paint enough to get the idea across. Everyone has a different idea of what I'm saying or what the song's about. I think it's more fun that way."
The soft-spoken Taylor looks at each album as a work of art, something he puts a lot of thought into -- including the title -- and something he hopes improves with each effort. His latest album, Clovis People Vol. 3, revisits some of his older songs that people don't have easy access to.
His debut disc, Blue Eyed Monster, sells for as much as $250 on eBay. Taylor decided to re-record some of those songs and some unreleased material from his past for the new disc, which is named after prehistoric tools that were discovered near his home.
"The tools being found kind of inspired me," he says. "I was going back to my own history. 'Little Willie' is a song I wrote before Columbine and recorded with my daughter singing when she was 13. It was never on a record though."
For Taylor, looking back at his musical history doesn't span decades. "I went back five records, but that's only seven years ago," he says with a laugh. "That's a lifetime to some people -- five records."
Taylor was a musician in the 1970s, but mostly performed live. He signed a record deal, but became disenchanted with the business and left music behind for roughly two decades. He returned in the mid-1990s after being asked to perform at a benefit concert. The "music bug" bit him and he decided to start recording. The rest, as they say, is history.
He's released nearly one album per year since 2000. "I'm trying to get it done because I only have a finite time on this earth," the 61-year-old says. "If I want to have a catalog, I need to get on it. It has to be good. I have ideas, but I have to execute them."
Taylor says he views his albums as a kind of puzzle, wanting each album to sound "the same, but different." "If it sounds the same, you keep your fans, but why do a new record if it's exactly the same thing that you did a year ago?" he says.
One album per year seems like a hectic pace, but Taylor also acknowledges that he's behind schedule. A recent surgery to remove a benign cyst and his gallbladder has left him "a little spacy."
"I haven't given myself enough time to recover, but I have to work," he says. "If I don't work, other people don't work. My voice is a little weak, and I think it's going to take more time to come back. I haven't experienced this before, so I don't have any reference points."
During a recent concert in support of the new album, he forgot to play any songs from it, adding that he'll play at least three or four during the concert in Charlotte. His set, which he says can at times sound like heavy metal folk, usually includes a cover of "Hey Joe" and his song "10 Million Slaves," which was featured in the movie Public Enemies. What else he plays will depend on what instruments he brings with him -- the band travels by plane instead of by bus.
"Guitar gets a lot of things done, unless I'm in the mood to play banjo," he says. "I stopped playing mandolin a lot because I have a mandolin player that tours with me. With guitar, I play in different tunings -- it's just the mood I'm in. For Charlotte, who knows what I'll bring."
Taylor is already working on his next album, for which he already has four songs written. For the most part, his music stays within a category that he likes to call trance blues.
"I'm a storyteller, so I'm always looking for an interesting story," he says. "I have to get a concept before I know what it'll be. History has an amazing amount of them. Every day I hear stories, but it's a matter of what would make a good song. I have to sing about this oil thing -- they don't know how to plug it up. I think they just started an unbelievable disaster that mother nature's not going to let them get away with."
Don't expect it to sound too polished though. Taylor prefers mistakes in his albums because he feels it makes it sound more "real." "I'm more interested in the emotion than the technique," he says.
Otis Taylor will perform at McGlohon Theatre on June 16 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $17.50, $19.50 and $22.50.