Eric Taylor (musician)
Encyclopedia
Eric Taylor is an American
singer-songwriter
from Texas
. He is known for his anecdotal
songs which often take the form of short stories
. In addition to Taylor's seven solo releases, his songs have been recorded by Nanci Griffith
, Lyle Lovett
and many others.
, on September 25, 1949. His father had been raised in the Greenville/Spartanburg area of South Carolina and when he was six months old Eric's parents moved there. Aged eleven, Eric moved back to Georgia. From an early age, the youngster wrote poetry and short stories, "I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid." At age thirteen, Taylor purchased his first guitar for $2.50, even though it lacked tuning pegs. He soon became adept at tuning with pliers. In his years of high school, Taylor played bass in numerous garage band
s. Considering his lifelong love of words, it was natural that Eric started composing, "The first song I wrote was "Trip Of The Golden Calf". It had real heavy lyrics." His teen years drawing to a close, Taylor headed to Washington D.C., and Georgetown University
. There was a burgeoning music scene locally. Six months later, Taylor was back in Atlanta, having run into some friends on the road. Although intent on returning to D.C., Eric was persuaded to join them on a cross-country trek to California. Their first stop was Houston, Texas. Lacking funds, for a while, Eric set aside his plans to travel west. Taking part time jobs, he delivered rental television sets and washed dishes. In local clubs Taylor witnessed performances by Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins, Townes Van Zandt
and Guy Clark
. He concluded that his musical education would benefit from hanging around for a while.
Eric formed a friendship with local concert promoter Mike Condray. "Mike was a big driving force in my life, musically. He told me the wrong things I was doing and told me what he liked too." Observing the aforementioned performers, and once more the owner of a guitar, Taylor began performing in local clubs. In time he toured other parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Georgia. In 1976 Eric contributed three songs - "Memphis Midnight, Memphis Morning," "Virginia's Photograph" and "Rainbows And Lightning, Beautiful And Frightening" - to the Houston songwriter compilation album Through The Dark Nightly released by Fair Retail Records. The following year Taylor was one of the six winners of the Kerrville Folk Festival Emerging Songwriters contest. Another Texas writer, albeit Austin based, who was creating a stir locally at this time, was Nanci Griffith. They became partners. When Nanci completed There's A Light Beyond These Woods [1978], the nine cuts included Eric's "Dollar Matinee." A duo rendition of the song appeared on the 1978 Kerrville Live Highlights album.
Initially reluctant to record a solo album, Eric eventually relented and the sessions took place at Loma Ranch Studios, near Fredericksburg. Co-produced by Eric and the studio owners, John and Laurie Hill, the resulting ten-track recording was titled Shameless Love. Although Eric and Nanci had parted, her vocals are prominently featured. Featherbed Records issued Nanci's second solo effort Poet In My Window in 1982. Cut at Loma Ranch, Eric played bass on the sessions and the collection included the Griffith/Taylor collaboration, "Ghost in the Music." Griffith continued to champion Taylor's music through the eighties recording a handful of his songs. On the eve of his first European tour in 1983, Taylor walked away from the music business and entered a rehabilitation programme. In the years that followed, Eric initially worked at a halfway house as a counsellor, while studying for a professional qualification. Over the ensuing decade he would play annual shows at Anderson Fair in Houston, and Austin's Cactus Café.
In 1994 Eric joined Lyle Lovett in California - back in his student days, Lovett had booked Taylor/Griffith shows at the coffeehouse on the Texas A&M campus - for the I Love Everybody recording sessions. The MCA/Curb collection included the Lovett/Taylor collaboration, "Fat Babies." A few months later Eric signed a song publishing deal with Polygram International.
Eric cut his sophomore solo album for the Austin based, now defunct, Watermelon label. Iain Matthews co-produced the album with his friend Mark Hallman, owner of Congress House studios. Eric Taylor was released in the late summer of 1995, and featured classic songs such as the Kerouac inspired "Dean Moriarty," and the closing tale of a streetwalkers pimp "Shoeshine Boy." The recording was subsequently voted the 1996 Kerrville Folk Festival, Album of the Year. Eric undertook his first European tour in late 1995 accompanied by David Olney, Vince Bell and Matthews. In 1997 he appeared in a songwriter's showcase at the Newport Folk Festival, and returned the following year as a headliner.
Lyle Lovett's tribute to Texas based songwriters Step Inside This House [1998] included Taylor's "Memphis Midnight, Memphis Morning." Denice Franke, Eric's longtime friend and backing vocalist, issued a solo album titled You Don't Know Me in September 1998, and followed it three years later with Comfort. Both albums were produced by Eric.
Eric's next solo album, Resurrect, surfaced in 1998. Taylor's writing was, once again, finely observed. In the spring of 2001, Eminent Records, a Nashville based imprint released Eric's fourth studio collection Scuffletown. As with its immediate predecessor, and both of Franke's solo albums, the recording sessions had taken place at Rock Romano's Red Shack in Houston. Commencing in 2002 Eric, Denice and David Olney began performing as The Texas Song Theatre, a concert presentation that includes song and spoken narrative. Olney subsequently decided to concentrate on his solo career, and it's planned that future Song Theatre productions will feature Steven Fromholz. In late 2004, Eric released an enhanced CD version of Shameless Love (previously only available on vinyl) on his own Blue Ruby label. It featured two previously unreleased songs, "Dollar Bill Hines" and "Half Moon Hotel." Later the same year, Taylor released the self-produced album The Great Divide featuring eleven songs, including "Storms," which Nanci Griffith cut for her album of the same name back in 1989.
Like The Great Divide, Hollywood Pocketknife [2007] was recorded at Romano's Red Shack in Houston and was another Blue Ruby self-release. It featured seven Taylor penned originals and one cover song each by Townes and Susan Lindfors, and closed with the traditional "Rally 'Round The Flag." The latter song, recorded on July 4, 2007, principally featured the voices of The Flatliners - Eric Taylor, Vince Bell, and Steven Fromholz. That trio made its concert debut during February 2005 and went on to perform Threadgill Theatre concerts during the 2006 and 2007 Kerrville Folk Festivals.
Taylor has toured extensively in the United States and Europe, playing notable venues such as Club Passim
, The Bottom Line
, Caffe Lena
, The Bluebird Cafe, Eddie's Attic, The Ark, CSPS, Freight & Salvage, Paradiso (Amsterdam)
, Theatre Kikker (Utrecht), The Real Music Club (Belfast), Hotel du Nord (Paris), Grey's Pub (Brighton), and The Bein Inn (Perth). Festival appearances include Kerrville, Newport Folk Festival
, Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Take Root (The Netherlands), and Roots of Heaven Festival (The Netherlands). He has taught at the Kerrville Song School, and has conducted songwriting workshops at the Fulston Manor Performing Arts Centre (Sittingbourne, England), CARAD (Rhayader, Wales), and the Plowshares Coffeehouse (Pennsylvania).
In 2009, Lovett released his second cover album, Natural Forces - and once again included a Taylor song. This time it was "Whooping Crane," from Taylor's 1995, self-titled album.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
from Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. He is known for his anecdotal
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
songs which often take the form of short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
. In addition to Taylor's seven solo releases, his songs have been recorded by Nanci Griffith
Nanci Griffith
Nanci Griffith, is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas.-Biography:...
, Lyle Lovett
Lyle Lovett
Lyle Pearce Lovett is an American singer-songwriter and actor. Active since 1980, he has recorded thirteen albums and released 21 singles to date, including his highest entry, the number 10 chart hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, "Cowboy Man"...
and many others.
Biography
Eric Taylor was born in Atlanta, GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, on September 25, 1949. His father had been raised in the Greenville/Spartanburg area of South Carolina and when he was six months old Eric's parents moved there. Aged eleven, Eric moved back to Georgia. From an early age, the youngster wrote poetry and short stories, "I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid." At age thirteen, Taylor purchased his first guitar for $2.50, even though it lacked tuning pegs. He soon became adept at tuning with pliers. In his years of high school, Taylor played bass in numerous garage band
Garage band
The term garage band can refer to:* A band that performs garage rock* GarageBand, audio production software published by Apple Inc.* GarageBand.com, a website that helps publicize emerging bands...
s. Considering his lifelong love of words, it was natural that Eric started composing, "The first song I wrote was "Trip Of The Golden Calf". It had real heavy lyrics." His teen years drawing to a close, Taylor headed to Washington D.C., and Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
. There was a burgeoning music scene locally. Six months later, Taylor was back in Atlanta, having run into some friends on the road. Although intent on returning to D.C., Eric was persuaded to join them on a cross-country trek to California. Their first stop was Houston, Texas. Lacking funds, for a while, Eric set aside his plans to travel west. Taking part time jobs, he delivered rental television sets and washed dishes. In local clubs Taylor witnessed performances by Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins, Townes Van Zandt
Townes Van Zandt
John Townes Van Zandt , best known as Townes Van Zandt, was an American Texas Country-folk music singer-songwriter, performer, and poet...
and Guy Clark
Guy Clark
Guy Clark is an American Texas Country artist. In his career, he has released more than twenty albums, primarily on major labels. He has also written singles for other artists, including Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner and Rodney Crowell....
. He concluded that his musical education would benefit from hanging around for a while.
Eric formed a friendship with local concert promoter Mike Condray. "Mike was a big driving force in my life, musically. He told me the wrong things I was doing and told me what he liked too." Observing the aforementioned performers, and once more the owner of a guitar, Taylor began performing in local clubs. In time he toured other parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Georgia. In 1976 Eric contributed three songs - "Memphis Midnight, Memphis Morning," "Virginia's Photograph" and "Rainbows And Lightning, Beautiful And Frightening" - to the Houston songwriter compilation album Through The Dark Nightly released by Fair Retail Records. The following year Taylor was one of the six winners of the Kerrville Folk Festival Emerging Songwriters contest. Another Texas writer, albeit Austin based, who was creating a stir locally at this time, was Nanci Griffith. They became partners. When Nanci completed There's A Light Beyond These Woods [1978], the nine cuts included Eric's "Dollar Matinee." A duo rendition of the song appeared on the 1978 Kerrville Live Highlights album.
Initially reluctant to record a solo album, Eric eventually relented and the sessions took place at Loma Ranch Studios, near Fredericksburg. Co-produced by Eric and the studio owners, John and Laurie Hill, the resulting ten-track recording was titled Shameless Love. Although Eric and Nanci had parted, her vocals are prominently featured. Featherbed Records issued Nanci's second solo effort Poet In My Window in 1982. Cut at Loma Ranch, Eric played bass on the sessions and the collection included the Griffith/Taylor collaboration, "Ghost in the Music." Griffith continued to champion Taylor's music through the eighties recording a handful of his songs. On the eve of his first European tour in 1983, Taylor walked away from the music business and entered a rehabilitation programme. In the years that followed, Eric initially worked at a halfway house as a counsellor, while studying for a professional qualification. Over the ensuing decade he would play annual shows at Anderson Fair in Houston, and Austin's Cactus Café.
In 1994 Eric joined Lyle Lovett in California - back in his student days, Lovett had booked Taylor/Griffith shows at the coffeehouse on the Texas A&M campus - for the I Love Everybody recording sessions. The MCA/Curb collection included the Lovett/Taylor collaboration, "Fat Babies." A few months later Eric signed a song publishing deal with Polygram International.
Eric cut his sophomore solo album for the Austin based, now defunct, Watermelon label. Iain Matthews co-produced the album with his friend Mark Hallman, owner of Congress House studios. Eric Taylor was released in the late summer of 1995, and featured classic songs such as the Kerouac inspired "Dean Moriarty," and the closing tale of a streetwalkers pimp "Shoeshine Boy." The recording was subsequently voted the 1996 Kerrville Folk Festival, Album of the Year. Eric undertook his first European tour in late 1995 accompanied by David Olney, Vince Bell and Matthews. In 1997 he appeared in a songwriter's showcase at the Newport Folk Festival, and returned the following year as a headliner.
Lyle Lovett's tribute to Texas based songwriters Step Inside This House [1998] included Taylor's "Memphis Midnight, Memphis Morning." Denice Franke, Eric's longtime friend and backing vocalist, issued a solo album titled You Don't Know Me in September 1998, and followed it three years later with Comfort. Both albums were produced by Eric.
Eric's next solo album, Resurrect, surfaced in 1998. Taylor's writing was, once again, finely observed. In the spring of 2001, Eminent Records, a Nashville based imprint released Eric's fourth studio collection Scuffletown. As with its immediate predecessor, and both of Franke's solo albums, the recording sessions had taken place at Rock Romano's Red Shack in Houston. Commencing in 2002 Eric, Denice and David Olney began performing as The Texas Song Theatre, a concert presentation that includes song and spoken narrative. Olney subsequently decided to concentrate on his solo career, and it's planned that future Song Theatre productions will feature Steven Fromholz. In late 2004, Eric released an enhanced CD version of Shameless Love (previously only available on vinyl) on his own Blue Ruby label. It featured two previously unreleased songs, "Dollar Bill Hines" and "Half Moon Hotel." Later the same year, Taylor released the self-produced album The Great Divide featuring eleven songs, including "Storms," which Nanci Griffith cut for her album of the same name back in 1989.
Like The Great Divide, Hollywood Pocketknife [2007] was recorded at Romano's Red Shack in Houston and was another Blue Ruby self-release. It featured seven Taylor penned originals and one cover song each by Townes and Susan Lindfors, and closed with the traditional "Rally 'Round The Flag." The latter song, recorded on July 4, 2007, principally featured the voices of The Flatliners - Eric Taylor, Vince Bell, and Steven Fromholz. That trio made its concert debut during February 2005 and went on to perform Threadgill Theatre concerts during the 2006 and 2007 Kerrville Folk Festivals.
Taylor has toured extensively in the United States and Europe, playing notable venues such as Club Passim
Club Passim
Club Passim is a folk music club in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was opened by Joyce Kalina and Paula Kelley in 1958, when it was known as Club 47 , and changed its name to simply Passim in 1969...
, The Bottom Line
Bottom Line
The Bottom Line was a music venue at 15 West Fourth Street between Mercer Street and Greene Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...
, Caffe Lena
Caffè Lena
Located in Saratoga Springs, New York, Caffè Lena is the oldest continually running coffee house in the United States. Founded in 1960 by Bill and Lena Spencer, it features acoustic concerts and cultural events showcasing folk music, traditional music, and singer-songwriters of a wide range...
, The Bluebird Cafe, Eddie's Attic, The Ark, CSPS, Freight & Salvage, Paradiso (Amsterdam)
Paradiso (Amsterdam)
Paradiso is an iconic rock music venue and cultural center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.-History:It is housed in a converted former church building that dates from the nineteenth century and that was used until 1965 as the meeting hall for a liberal Dutch religious group known as the "Vrije...
, Theatre Kikker (Utrecht), The Real Music Club (Belfast), Hotel du Nord (Paris), Grey's Pub (Brighton), and The Bein Inn (Perth). Festival appearances include Kerrville, Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
, Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Take Root (The Netherlands), and Roots of Heaven Festival (The Netherlands). He has taught at the Kerrville Song School, and has conducted songwriting workshops at the Fulston Manor Performing Arts Centre (Sittingbourne, England), CARAD (Rhayader, Wales), and the Plowshares Coffeehouse (Pennsylvania).
In 2009, Lovett released his second cover album, Natural Forces - and once again included a Taylor song. This time it was "Whooping Crane," from Taylor's 1995, self-titled album.
Discography
- Through The Dark Nightly (1976) - [Fair Retail Records, compilation with other Houston songwriters: Bill Cade, Stephen Jarrard, Lynn Langman, Don Sanders]
- Shameless Love (1981, Featherbed; reissued 2004, Blue Ruby Music)
- Eric Taylor (1995, Watermelon)
- Resurrect (1998, E1 Music)
- Scuffletown (2001, Eminent)
- The Kerrville Tapes (2003, Silverwolf)
- The Great Divide (2005, Blue Ruby Music)
- Hollywood Pocketknife (2007, Blue Ruby Music)
- Live at the Red Shack (2011, Blue Ruby Music)
External links
- Blue Ruby Music: The Official Web Site for Eric Taylor
- http://www.sonicbids.com/erictaylor, electronic press kit