Clovis People Vol. 3 [no, there are no Volumes 1 and 2] opens with “Rain So Hard,” and it’s pure magic. Mr. Taylor grabbed me with an undeniable essence of sitar washed psychedelic music straight out of the 60’s, and then slides into a Jazz/Blues thing that just sent shivers strolling down my spine with it’s hypnotic layered washes of complex stripped down songs.

Yeah, I realize that sounds confusing, but just listen to Otis Taylor lay out and fuse musical traditions, all the while exploring the one element that causes us all such frustration, pain, and exhalation ... love. The title is more then fitting, as the Clovis People no longer exist, and the shivers across the back of my hands feel like ghosts of another musical era, only recently discovered, are walking through my house. The Clovis people, the oldest inhabitants of North America vanished some 13,000 years ago, though perhaps like Otis Taylor’s music, they merged with others, giving a richness to another culture, and a new sense of being.

Mr. Taylor’s music has always been a bit etherial, if not elemental, but here, here his songs hang just out of reach, swirling around you like a summer moth circling a candle. Even after several listens these numbers sound so fresh it’s like you’re hearing them for the first time ... Otis Taylor doesn’t just play the blues, Otis Taylor is the blues. I’ve been waiting for music like this since I first heard John Mayall, and his “Empty Rooms” release. See, the Blues isn’t just about Blues riffs, the Blues is about storytelling, an aspect all too many modern bluesmen have forgotten, but not Otis Taylor, his stories filter in and out of each song, as valuable as any note he plays.

Otis Taylor has been walking among us for quite some time now, if you haven’t discovered him for yourself, I highly suggest you do ... and this release, Clovis People Vol. 3, is the perfect place to begin.

Review by Jenell Kesler