My introduction to Otis Taylor was his third album, 2001’s White African. He’s from Colorado, but he took hill-country blues to heart, droning wickedly and refusing to change chords, except exactly where it would break the listener’s mind. He sang in the voice of a black man framed for a murder, lynched, doomed to roam railroad tracks and the wilderness alongside them as a ghost, trying in vain—and already losing hope—that anyone would ever hear. Well, that cost me a few winks. The more recent album is called Fantasizing About Being Black, so his humor is still obstinately corrosive, and over the years he’s added drums, trumpet, and a few other not-strictly-blues touches. But he’s still singing about death. About running, running, and don’t look back unless you want to see your last muzzle flash. by Andrew Hamlin