Materials from Otis Taylor’s decades-long career as an internationally recognized Boulder-based blues banjo artist are now part of an archived collection at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Taylor, who’s lived in Boulder since 1967, has released 15 albums and been at the forefront of Black banjo music. Taylor won many awards throughout his career for his music, which was often about race, injustice and the hardships Black people face. Taylor was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in 2019.
“He’s a very wonderful addition on many levels. First of all, Otis is a great artist that is well renowned but whose work has not received enough recognition,” Austin Okigbo, interim director of the American Music Research Center at CU Boulder said.
“I think housing his work at the AMRC is the best way to give him the visibility, the recognition and the honor that he deserves, as somebody who has made major contributions to American music and culture.”
Materials from Taylor’s career are now part of CU Boulder’s American Music Research Center archival collections housed in the University Libraries’ Rare and Distinctive Collections. The American Music Research Center supports the research, performance and preservation of all music of the Americas with a particular emphasis on music diversity from the United States. The center holds a rare collection of scores, papers, recordings and other material artifacts that document the history of American music that now includes Taylor’s collection.
Megan Friedel, head of collections management and stewardship for Rare and Distinctive Collections, estimates there are about 100 boxes of material covering his entire career. Those boxes include recordings of his work, handwritten lyrics for original songs, concert posters and programs, concert T- shirts, photographs, news articles and documentation of awards he won. The plan is to finish organizing the materials by the end of the summer so they’ll be available for use in the fall.
“You don’t have to be affiliated with CU to use the collection. You don’t have to be a scholar,” Friedel said. “Anyone can make an appointment in the Rare and Distinctive Collections reading room beginning in the fall to see the collection. There will be a guide to the collection online so they can select the boxes and folders they want to look at.”
Taylor said he’s glad people will be able to study his materials and learn about the real history of the blues, Colorado and American music. He said the archive is the right place for him and his music, and will create a lasting legacy.
“It’s a big honor being recognized,” Taylor said, adding, “I’m very honored. I think it’s the right place for me and solves the problem of what happens to me when I’m gone.”
Friedel said she hopes the collection will be used in classes so students can learn from it, especially within the College of Music.
“It’s one of several collections that we’ve received over the past five or six years that really starts to solidify Colorado’s place in the national music scene,” Friedel said.
Anyone with questions about the collection can email rad@colorado.edu.
“Otis is somebody who is well rooted in the state of Colorado, and therefore he’s a son of the state whose contribution needs to be celebrated,” Okigbo said.
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