Jane Taylor (musician)
Encyclopedia
Jane Taylor is a Bristol-based guitarist
, pianist
, songwriter
and vocalist. Jane won the UK and International Songwriting Competition in 2003
with her song "Blowing This Candle Out".
, Joan Baez
and Simon and Garfunkel
heavily influenced the young Jane, as did her mother's love of classical music.
Jane picked up her father's guitar at the age of five and composed her first song. Brought up in an English village near Newark
, Nottinghamshire
, she attended Brownies and Sunday School at the local Church Hall and took to wandering off on her own and sitting herself at the piano in one of the empty rooms in the Hall. Here was where she really began to create her own music and find her way around the piano. She is still a self taught musician on both the guitar and piano and can barely read music. But it was an instinct, and she always wrote for herself, out of a need to express her troubled emotional world.
She continued to play the guitar and piano and composed throughout her childhood, winning school competitions and gaining a reputation for playing her music to the school, encouraged by teachers and pupils alike. At the age of 19, Jane went to Keele University
, Staffordshire
where her music took on a political flavour. In particular, a song entitled Tiananmen Square
became a much loved anthem for a lot of the students visiting the Folk Club there in the 90's.
Following university, Jane wandered off into the record business, working for one of the few independents The Grapevine Label Ltd. Grapevine had signed many famous artists, including Emmylou Harris
, Christy Moore
, and one of her major early influences Joan Baez
. There she learned about how to make and manufacture a record, and most importantly how to promote and sell a record. It was this early education into the music business that helped her gain the confidence to finally create and promote her own work some years later.
A month later, she found herself in a studio in Bristol bumping into Massive Attack
guitarist Angelo Bruschini
, who then agreed to play on her first recorded track Blowing This Candle Out. The track went on to win best song in the International Songwriter Of The Year competition, and landed Jane her first major gig at London's famous Ronnie Scotts. And so began the whirlwind of a journey that took a girl out of her bedroom where she'd been playing solo for years, and into the great big world.
The Bristol music community is strong and has integrity. And word travels fast when there's something new, credible and exciting on the scene. So it wasn't long before Jane had formed a band, made up of some of the finest musicians in Bristol and started touring around the UK and Ireland. She also went on to tour in Germany and Italy, gathering more and more beloved fans along the way.
Sony TV then requested that another of her tracks (which was just a demo) Getting To Me be played on the hit TV series Dawsons Creek. Jane then decided it was time to set up her own label, Bicycle Records.
When Johnnie Walker played the song Fall on Me on his BBC Radio 2 show in 2006, he was inundated with emails wanting to know who this new singer-songwriter was, where they could find out about her, and most importantly would he "Please play more".
He had so many requests that he decided to mention her website the next day, and informed the listeners that it was taken from Montpelier the debut album by a Bristol based singer-songwriter called Jane Taylor, who had produced everything under her own little label, Bicycle Records. He played her song again day only to be inundated once more with questions and messages of "more please..."
Johnnie Walker then invited to Jane to play a live session on his show and the CD requests and e-mails flooded in again. Since then Jane has appeared on Radio 4’s Loose Ends, secured an international distribution deal with Pinnacle, had a track from the album included on The Word magazine, and landed support slots opening for Jools Holland, Bill Wyman, Paolo Nutini, Seth Lakeman, Midge Ure, Andy Fairweather-Low and Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile.
Created in Sheffield at Yellow Arch Studio’s with Colin Elliot, (particularly famous for his work on Richard Hawley's 'Coles Corner' album), it features an eclectic mix of aural delights. Classical Vaughan Williams style strings, a Steinway piano, a Gospel choir singing with half the Hawley band, the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band (who appeared in the Ewan McGregor film 'Brassed Off'), a music box, Ukulele’s and a rhythm track made up of everything from rustling rubbish bins to the cellist making a sound of a Dolphin. It's all going on!
The album was released in October 2008, with a number of special album preview shows in Scotland. The first official launch was in Bristol's converted church, Circomedia
.
Not long after this Jane discovered she was going to have a baby boy! So plans for a re-release of the album are away for 2010 while she settles in to being a mum. Meanwhile songs from the album have been played on the Bob Harris show at BBC Radio 2 and you can see a video for the album song 'All Things Change' on YouTube, as well as some live footage of her performances (visit Jane's MySpace page).
Get Rhythm said: "Jane Taylor is no ordinary singer songwriter. She has this intangible magic in her voice. The kind that draws you in and holds you right there until the moment you notice that you've forgotten to breathe and then you hear her words (which bizarrely seem to have been written for you), and stand there transfixed like its a bit of fate that brought you here and I will defy anyone not to leave without a CD or at least humming one of her songs."
In January 2011, Compass won in The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards in the Singer-Songwriter category.
For more up-to-date information on her live performances see her official websites.
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
and vocalist. Jane won the UK and International Songwriting Competition in 2003
2003 International Songwriting Competition
The 2003 International Songwriting Competition was a songwriting competition held in 2003.-Pop/Top 40:First placeSecond place-Rock:First placeSecond place-Folk/Singer-songwriter:First placeSecond place-AAA/Roots/Americana:First placeSecond place...
with her song "Blowing This Candle Out".
Early career
Jane was born in Lincolnshire, in an RAF hospital called Nocton Hall. As well as being in the RAF, her father was an artist, songwriter and guitarist. His musical talent and love of Bob DylanBob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
and Simon and Garfunkel
Simon and Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel are an American duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom & Jerry in 1957 and had their first success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl". As Simon & Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, largely on the strength of the...
heavily influenced the young Jane, as did her mother's love of classical music.
Jane picked up her father's guitar at the age of five and composed her first song. Brought up in an English village near Newark
Newark-on-Trent
Newark-on-Trent is a market town in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands region of England. It stands on the River Trent, the A1 , and the East Coast Main Line railway. The origins of the town are possibly Roman as it lies on an important Roman road, the Fosse Way...
, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, she attended Brownies and Sunday School at the local Church Hall and took to wandering off on her own and sitting herself at the piano in one of the empty rooms in the Hall. Here was where she really began to create her own music and find her way around the piano. She is still a self taught musician on both the guitar and piano and can barely read music. But it was an instinct, and she always wrote for herself, out of a need to express her troubled emotional world.
She continued to play the guitar and piano and composed throughout her childhood, winning school competitions and gaining a reputation for playing her music to the school, encouraged by teachers and pupils alike. At the age of 19, Jane went to Keele University
Keele University
Keele University is a campus university near Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as an experimental college dedicated to a broad curriculum and interdisciplinary study, Keele is most notable for pioneering the dual honours degree in Britain...
, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
where her music took on a political flavour. In particular, a song entitled Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
became a much loved anthem for a lot of the students visiting the Folk Club there in the 90's.
Following university, Jane wandered off into the record business, working for one of the few independents The Grapevine Label Ltd. Grapevine had signed many famous artists, including Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
, Christy Moore
Christy Moore
Christopher Andrew "Christy" Moore is a popular Irish folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He is well known as one of the founding members of Planxty and Moving Hearts...
, and one of her major early influences Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
. There she learned about how to make and manufacture a record, and most importantly how to promote and sell a record. It was this early education into the music business that helped her gain the confidence to finally create and promote her own work some years later.
Professional musician
Just a few years ago, Jane decided to give up her normal job in the real world and make a go of it as a full time singer-songwriter, on a whim, after a chat with a rather convincing friend!A month later, she found herself in a studio in Bristol bumping into Massive Attack
Massive Attack
Massive Attack are an English DJ and trip hop duo from Bristol, England consisting of Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. Working with co-producers, as well as various session musicians and guest vocalists, they make records and tour live. The duo are considered to be of the trip...
guitarist Angelo Bruschini
Angelo Bruschini
Angelo Bruschini is an English rock guitarist who has been a member of The Numbers, Rimshots, The Blue Aeroplanes, and now Massive Attack. He produced Strangelove's eponymous album in 1997...
, who then agreed to play on her first recorded track Blowing This Candle Out. The track went on to win best song in the International Songwriter Of The Year competition, and landed Jane her first major gig at London's famous Ronnie Scotts. And so began the whirlwind of a journey that took a girl out of her bedroom where she'd been playing solo for years, and into the great big world.
The Bristol music community is strong and has integrity. And word travels fast when there's something new, credible and exciting on the scene. So it wasn't long before Jane had formed a band, made up of some of the finest musicians in Bristol and started touring around the UK and Ireland. She also went on to tour in Germany and Italy, gathering more and more beloved fans along the way.
Sony TV then requested that another of her tracks (which was just a demo) Getting To Me be played on the hit TV series Dawsons Creek. Jane then decided it was time to set up her own label, Bicycle Records.
Montpelier (2006)
Together with award winning Producer and composer Bill Lovelady, Jane and her band created her first album Montpelier. Made on a complete shoe-string, the album was financed by the fans who pre-bought the album up to half a year in advance. It was recorded in a barn in Oxford, in a freezing cold October. The barn was chosen for its unique acoustics, and it's what eventually gave the album such an individual sound. It was an interesting experience trying to record an album in the cold whilst wearing hats, gloves and coats, and drinking endless cups of hot tea to keep warm. The experience was complicated somewhat by the crowing cockerels, squeaky wheelbarrows and a local celebrity who liked to take his plane out most days! Montpelier was born.When Johnnie Walker played the song Fall on Me on his BBC Radio 2 show in 2006, he was inundated with emails wanting to know who this new singer-songwriter was, where they could find out about her, and most importantly would he "Please play more".
He had so many requests that he decided to mention her website the next day, and informed the listeners that it was taken from Montpelier the debut album by a Bristol based singer-songwriter called Jane Taylor, who had produced everything under her own little label, Bicycle Records. He played her song again day only to be inundated once more with questions and messages of "more please..."
Johnnie Walker then invited to Jane to play a live session on his show and the CD requests and e-mails flooded in again. Since then Jane has appeared on Radio 4’s Loose Ends, secured an international distribution deal with Pinnacle, had a track from the album included on The Word magazine, and landed support slots opening for Jools Holland, Bill Wyman, Paolo Nutini, Seth Lakeman, Midge Ure, Andy Fairweather-Low and Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile.
Compass (2008)
Jane’s new album Compass was finally released in 2008.Created in Sheffield at Yellow Arch Studio’s with Colin Elliot, (particularly famous for his work on Richard Hawley's 'Coles Corner' album), it features an eclectic mix of aural delights. Classical Vaughan Williams style strings, a Steinway piano, a Gospel choir singing with half the Hawley band, the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band (who appeared in the Ewan McGregor film 'Brassed Off'), a music box, Ukulele’s and a rhythm track made up of everything from rustling rubbish bins to the cellist making a sound of a Dolphin. It's all going on!
The album was released in October 2008, with a number of special album preview shows in Scotland. The first official launch was in Bristol's converted church, Circomedia
Circomedia
Circomedia is a school for contemporary circus and physical theatre based in Bristol, England. The school offers a variety of training courses and workshops that teach circus skills in the context of physical theatre, performance and creativity....
.
Not long after this Jane discovered she was going to have a baby boy! So plans for a re-release of the album are away for 2010 while she settles in to being a mum. Meanwhile songs from the album have been played on the Bob Harris show at BBC Radio 2 and you can see a video for the album song 'All Things Change' on YouTube, as well as some live footage of her performances (visit Jane's MySpace page).
Get Rhythm said: "Jane Taylor is no ordinary singer songwriter. She has this intangible magic in her voice. The kind that draws you in and holds you right there until the moment you notice that you've forgotten to breathe and then you hear her words (which bizarrely seem to have been written for you), and stand there transfixed like its a bit of fate that brought you here and I will defy anyone not to leave without a CD or at least humming one of her songs."
In January 2011, Compass won in The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards in the Singer-Songwriter category.
Radio airplay
- BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
- The Bob HarrisBob Harris (radio)Robert Brinley Joseph "Bob" Harris, OBE , known as "Whispering" Bob Harris, is British radio host who currently works for BBC Radio 2, presenting music two nights a week...
show. - BBC Radio 2 - Johnnie WalkerJohnnie Walker (DJ)Johnnie Walker MBE is a popular British veteran radio disc jockey and broadcaster....
Drive Time. - BBC Radio 2 - Johnnie Walker standing in for Terry WoganTerry WoganSir Michael Terence Wogan, KBE, DL , or also known as Terry Wogan, is a veteran Irish radio and television broadcaster who holds dual Irish and British citizenship. Wogan has worked for the BBC in the United Kingdom for most of his career...
. - BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
- Loose EndsLoose Ends (radio)Loose Ends is a British radio programme originally broadcast on Saturday mornings, and then transmitted early Saturday evenings from 1998 by BBC Radio 4. It was hosted by Ned Sherrin until he became ill in late 2006 with a reported throat infection, and later throat cancer...
.
2006
- Toured the UK.
- Main Stage, Trowbridge Pump Festival.
- Supported Seth LakemanSeth LakemanSeth Bernard Lakeman is an English folk singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, who is most often associated with the fiddle and tenor guitar, but has also mastered the viola and banjo...
at Plymouth University. - Supported Andy Fairweather-LowAndy Fairweather-LowAndrew Fairweather Low is a Welsh guitarist, songwriter and vocalist. He was a founding member of 1960s British pop band, Amen Corner, and in recent years has toured extensively with Roger Waters, Eric Clapton and Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings.-Early career:Fairweather Low first found fame as a...
on his UK tour in October 2006. - Supported Paul Buchanan of The Blue NileThe Blue NileThe Blue Nile is an adult alternative/pop band from Glasgow. The music of The Blue Nile is built heavily on synthesizers and electronic instrumentation and percussion, although later works featured acoustic guitar more prominently.-Early years:...
on his UK tour in November 2006. - Supported Paolo NutiniPaolo NutiniPaolo Giovanni Nutini is a Scottish singer, songwriter and musician from Paisley. His father is of Italian descent, from Barga, Tuscany, although both his parents are Scottish, his family having been in Scotland for three generations....
at The Cluny in Newcastle on December 2006.
2007
- Toured the UK.
- Supported Martha TilstonMartha Tilston- Biography :Martha Tilston is the daughter of singer-songwriter Steve Tilston and stepdaughter of Irish folk performer Maggie Boyle. Trained as an artist and dramatist, she began her musical career in 2000 as an active presence in Britain's alternative festival scene, particularly as part of the...
. - Supported Jools HollandJools HollandJulian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, The Who, David Gilmour and Bono.Holland is a...
at the Larmer Tree FestivalLarmer Tree FestivalThe Larmer Tree Festival is a five-day music and arts festival held annually at the Larmer Tree Gardens near Tollard Royal on the Wiltshire-Dorset border in England. Described as "One of the most family-friendly festivals around", it is also noted for its "stunning location .....
2007. - Supported Midge UreMidge UreJames "Midge" Ure, OBE is a Scottish guitarist, singer, keyboard player, and songwriter...
in 2007.
2008
- Highlands Tour for Compass.
- UK launch tour for Compass.
- Glastonbury Festival.
- Trowbridge Pump Festival.
- Supported Bill WymanBill WymanBill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...
of the Rolling Stones at The Robin 2 in Wolverhampton in 2008. - Toured Germany 2008.
2009
- Dartmouth Music Festival.
- Supporting EzioEzio (band)Ezio is a folk music band from Cambridge, England formed in 1990. Ezio have six studio albums, one compilation album, four live albums and three videos / DVDs, built up a large fanbase without breaking into the mainstream of the British music scene...
at The Robin 2, 26 August 2009.
2010
- Bristol St George's
- Touring Germany 2010
- Bristol Colston Hall
For more up-to-date information on her live performances see her official websites.
Montpelier (Bicycle Records Ltd., 2006, JT002)
- Fall On Me
- My Street
- Hit The Ground
- 16 Points
- Chef
- Mirror Mirror
- Blowing This Candle Out
- Landslide
- Feels Good
- Brother
- Getting To Me
New stuff we're still messing with EP (2007)
- All Things Change
- Old Friends
- Cracks
- Home
- Hallelujah
Compass (Bicycle Records Ltd., 2009, JT003)
- Cracks
- Hallelujah
- Old Friends
- All Things Change
- Compass
- Home
- I'm Fine
- Lay Down Your Sword
- Where Is Your Grace
- I Will Get There