BEN HARPER CHARLIE &MUSSELWHITE MARCIA BALL COREY HARRIS

NUMBER TWO www.bluesmusicmagazine.com OTIS TAYLOR US $5.99 Canada $7.99 UK £4.60 Australia A$15.95 C Out On Her Own On her first solo album, Cassie Taylor wrote and sung The independent route not necessarily the route she would the songs, but left most of the rest to her producer. For have chosen. Taylor and her husband, Charles “Chuck” Haren, A the follow-up, she had a much stronger hand, asserting who served as executive producer on the album, tried to raise the level of creative control she learned as an apprentice money through other means, but when that wasn’t successful, he in her father’s band. made a decision that earned him arguably the ultimate liner note S It’s only fitting that the daughter of Otis Taylor shout out: “Dedicated to my man, who sold his car to make the should be a maverick. While playing bass in his touring album.” band and contributing to his albums while only a “I’m forever indebted,” said Taylor, who notes that Haren’s S teenager, Cassie witnessed an artist who not only wrote Volvo had a leather interior. “I have to buy him a brand-new the songs and directed his musicians, but also controlled Volvo. Eventually I’ll have to find a way to get him a better car, I his publishing and retained ownership of his masters, maybe a Lamborghini.” licensing his albums to record labels. Now she’s doing For now, Taylor can repay Haren in part by celebrating their the same. relationship in song, as she does on the title track, though she E What she’s learned is how much joy that level of notes with a laugh that he also was the inspiration for “No Ring control brings, and how challenging it can be to earn it. Blues,” written before they got married. The reward this time around is Out Of My Mind, a Out Of My Mind is a bold artistic statement for Cassie 12-song collection of originals that was picked up by Taylor and a testament to her commercial independence as well. Yellow Dog Records and has won her widening acclaim, “For me, that was the most important thing because you defi- T including a notice with a color caricature in The nitely do get a little more creative control when you’re the one New Yorker. who is putting the money down. And that was one of my favorite “The first album I really didn’t have anything to do things, just being able to do what I wanted,” she said. “It was defi- A with the production, instrumentation, or arrangement of nitely a risk because it was one of those things where we didn’t anything,” Taylor said by phone during a recent tour have a record company. When we went into the studio, it was like stop. “I went into the studio, and I had cut this scratch ‘I really hope somebody likes this so we can do something with Y track. And then I went to work on the Girls With Guitars it, and it will be worth it.’ But in the end, I definitely think that it album in Berlin. And when I came back to the U.S. the was. We’ll see the fruits of our labors.” album was completely done, and I just finished up the In addition to Yellow Dog Records, which licensed the L vocal track.” album, Taylor also linked with a For Out Of My Mind, brand-name music publicity O which Taylor financed outfit in New York-based Shore herself – actually, her Fire Media, whose client roster husband/tour manager includes such heavyweights as R sold his Volvo to pay for Bruce Springsteen, Elvis it – the singer-songwriter pored Costello, Diana Krall, Norah over most every detail from the Jones, and The Roots. music to the packaging. “Shore Fire isn’t the biggest “This album is very publicist, but they really believe different in the fact that we in the artist so they are so care- funded it. I produced it, I found ful about hand-selecting. I’m the musicians, and I arranged honored to be able to work with everything,” said Taylor, whose them,” Taylor said. “And Yellow choices included drummer Dog has been a fantastic record Larry Thompson, who was ini- company. Mike Powers, who is tially tapped to record with her a the president, is so easy to work few years ago and became a with and is really honest and member of her father’s band. “I has a lot of integrity, which I had a much more heavy hand in think you see very seldom in basically everything, including the music industry period.” down to the artwork and the Taylor called an early way the fonts were. There was collection of demos Daughter lot of back and forth between Of A Bluesman. While her Yellow Dog’s graphic designer songs largely have a decidedly and me. I wanted to make sure more traditional rock and blues

everything that went into the JOSEPH A. ROSEN singer-songwriter format then © album was a really well-defined those of her father, his influ- representation of who I am as ence, particularly his penchant an artist.” for writing historical songs, PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY

Blues Music Magazine 21 emerges on Out Of My Mind on “Ol’ Mama Dean,” Parts 1 and 2, who for a time had put music aside to once again embrace it fully which chronicles the tale of a woman who is sentenced to 25 and begin earning national acclaim, including a recent write-up years to life in prison for killing an abusive spouse in self-defense. in The New Yorker magazine. “I’ve been in The New Yorker, but The vocal refrain “Freedom” in the song echoes a part she sang they never did a drawing of me,” he said. on one of her father’s songs, “Buy Myself Some Freedom” nearly a While Cassie Taylor had several years of touring experience decade ago. Elsewhere on the album a trumpet by Jon Gay featured with her father, before setting off on her own, she’s been busy on the song “Forgiveness” recalls Otis Taylor’s frequent use of cor- carving out her own trail. “There is a whole club market that I net player Ron Miles. Even the snippets of lyrics in the liner notes don’t think my dad really touched on when I was touring with seem to be a nod to Otis Taylor’s practice of offering listeners short him because I entered his scene later and did more festivals and descriptions of his songs. Taylor welcomes the comparison, as does stuff like that,” she said. “It gives me the opportunity to create her father. “It’s part of her heritage,” Otis Taylor said. new relationships with the vendor buyers and the fans as well.” Taylor is clearly a proud father, having watched a daughter – Michael Cote

22 Blues Music Magazine