Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
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AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
Otis Taylor
My World Is Gone (Telarc)
OTIS TAYLOR calls his compelling sound “trance blues,” an amalgam of jazz riffs, blues realism, rock inflections, stark social and political commentary and powerful musicianship.
Born in Chicago in 1948, Taylor made a reversal of many a great blues singer’s journey by moving out of the Windy City as a child, when his parents took him back with them to their home city of Denver. He grew up listening to his father’s jazz records, head the compulsive repetitive beat of John Lee Hooker’s blues and dedicated himself to learning banjo, guitar and harmonica, while also playing bass in a rock band called Zephyr, based in Boulder, Colorado.
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