Tag: “Chip Taylor”

Show #3 Chip Taylor and his new release “Fix Your Words”

There’s a good case to make that Chip Taylor is a godfather of Americana music. His ’70 albums – particularly “Chip Taylor’s Last Chance” – foreshadowed the genre to come. Chip has had an astonishing career as a Hall of Fame songwriter (“Wild Thing,” “Angel of the Morning”), as a partner with Carrie Rodriguez and as  a solo artist of great integrity. In this conversation on Grammys weekend in New York, Chip tells us about his latest album “Fix Your Words.”

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New Releases: The Coalmen, Chip Taylor

By Ken Paulson

New and recent releases:

CoalmenThe CoalmenPushed to the Side – Coming August 19 is Pushed to the Side, the fifth album from the Nashville-based Coalmen. Band leader Dave Coleman is a next-generation Tony Joe White, writing soulful and thoughtful songs and he’s joined here by Dave Ray and Paul Slivka. The songs are sometimes sobering and always well-crafted. Highlights include “Depreciation,”  an insightful song about the aging process and the driving “The Payoff.”

Various artists On Top of Old Smoky – New Old Time Smoky Mountain Music – In the excellent liner notes to this new collection,Ted Olson explains that a scholar named Joseph Sargeant Hall was hired in 1937 to research the local culture and record the music of the Smoky Mountains just before those living there had to move to make way for the new national park. This collection features contemporary artists, including Dolly Parton, and Norman and Nanci Blake, revisiting the songs captured by Hall.

chip taylorChip TaylorLittle Brothers – Trainwreck Records – It’s hard to say which is more remarkable – Chip Taylor’s prolific output or the consistent thoughtfulness behind his work. His new collection include “Refugee Children,” a song about kids he met during his travels in Europe and “Enlighten Yourself,” a self-help song he punctures with his own irreverent commentary. Taylor also has a bonus release– I’ll Carry For You – a song about the bond between sisters.

Sarah WatkinsYoung in All the Wrong Ways – New West – This striking new collection from Sarah Watkins shows her growing confidence and skills as a songwriter. It’s a long way from Nickel Creek.

Ruby Dee and the Snake HandlersLittle Black Heart – Caddy Town Records -Today is the release date for a new album from Ruby Dee, who overcame  significant medical challenges to release this rockabilly-fueled collection.

 

Review: Chip Taylor’s “Little Prayers Trilogy”

By Ken Paulson

Little PrayersIt’s remarkable that the composer of one of pop’s most shallow hits now writes and records some of America’s deepest and most reflective songs.

“Wild Thing/You make my heart sing/You make everything groovy” is light years away from Chip Taylor’s compositions on The Little Prayers Trilogy, his new three-CD collection on Train Wreck Records.

Though Taylor’s early career included writing such hits as Wild Thing,” “Angel  of the Morning” and “I Can’t Let Go,” he’s carved out a less commercial path as a solo artist, beginning with a series of solo albums in the late ’60s and ‘70s that foreshadowed the Americana genre.

The new album continues his recent run of personal  and often somber recordings. Behind the Iron Door, the first disc, includes two duets with Lucinda Williams (memorable on Taylor’s earlier London Sessions Bootleg) and largely focuses on the oppressed. “Ted Williams” is not about baseball.  The surprise here, though, is the darkest Christmas song you’ve ever heard

Love and Pain, the second disc, includes the hauntingly self-aware Nothin’ Coming Out of Me That I Like,” which continues ” Nothing prayerful and nothing respectful, so I think  I’ll just shut me down  for a while and come back in a while and see who I am.”

Little Prayers is the most sparse of the three discs, although the entire project is characterized by quiet, hushed vocals and minimal instrumentation. It’s an astonishingly intimate recording; you’ll hear every catch of breath, every swallow, every purse of the lips.

This is not background music. It demands your attention. That makes it rewarding, but not a particularly comfortable listening experience.

For Chip Taylor’s long-time fans, the new collection is a thought-provoking bounty. For those new to Taylor’s music, we’d suggest the more accessible Yonkers N.Y. or even Last Chance. In his sixth decade of making music, Chip Taylor is not coasting.

Interview: Chip Taylor on “Block Out the Sirens of This Lonely World”

By Ken Paulson

Chip Taylor regularly attends the Americana music Festival and it’s always great to catch up with him. He wrote classic pop songs like “Angel of the Morning,” “I Can’t Let Go” and Wild Thing” and then carved out a country career in the early ’70s  that was truly a precursor to what we now call Americana. Here’s Chip on his most recent work:

 

Rock and Roll Joe

There are songwriters with more melodic voices and some with more chart success, but few are as consistently interesting as Chip Taylor. Best known as the writer of “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” and more recently as an Americana artist, Taylor is never complacent. His 7 Days in May told of his complicated romance with a young French woman, the topical Black and Blue America channeled U.S. history and Yonkers, NY revisited his childhood. This is not a man who just strings songs together.
It’s little wonder, then, that his new album Rock And Roll Joe is similarly ambitious, recognizing the unsung heroes of rock music. Joined by Kendel Carson and long-time guitarist John Plantania, Taylor salutes Savoy Records players on “The Savoy Files,” revisits his own Hollies hit “I Can’t Let Go,” teases Plantania for leaving him to play with Van Morrison on “The Van Song” and celebrates the musician’s union on “The Union Song.” Whew.
Like all of Chip Taylor’s work, there’s a rough-hewn and almost off-the-cuff feel here. That intimacy – and Taylor’s sincerity – give Rock and Roll Joe its charm.
(Be sure to check out the companion website. It’s a terrific collection of essays about the largely uncelebrated musicians, writers and producers who transformed rock.)