I was intrigued by this album, listened to some online and liked what I heard, so went to hear a live show with Otis Taylor and Don Vappie, touted as "Black Banjo". I was disappointed. Don Vappie is a brilliant technician but he performed very pedestrian, show-offy, audience-pleasers -- that was disappointing since I know that he is capable of getting much deeper into the music -- although it may be that this kind of performance is just what he does, because it was virtually identical to the other performances I've seem him do. Otis Taylor played only one piece where he used the banjo (he played a 5 string) in a way that made use of the 5th string -- it was an "original" piece which was basically the first line of Cluck Old Hen played over and over for about 7 minutes, with original intermittent lyrics. And with a kind of "funk" electric bass line, quite loud (I think the banjo had a pickup). If I had been dancing I might have enjoyed it but it was not all that interesting to listen to. The rest of the "banjo" pieces were essentially Otis using the banjo in exactly the same way as he would have used a guitar, ignoring the 5th string, and he eventually actually switched to guitar. He was backed by his extremely gorgeous daughter, who played electric bass and sang, and another young guitarist, and Don Vappie. This was a few months back now, so I may have forgotten someone.

Otis Taylor is a wonderful singer and a good guitarist, and has some good original material, but the show I saw lacked depth.   I felt a bit like the performers were working too hard, or trying too hard to be entertainers, whereas I would have preferred for them to focus on the music itself. For me, the "entertaining show" aspect seemed like a way of the performers putting a wall in between them and the audience. But that's just me -- I suspect the general population prefers for the performers to do the work of entertaining -- the performances I like best require the audience to meet the performers halfway (at least).