Just Short of the Line

Eric Taylor is a sage musician, a lyrical genius and a master of the guitar. If you're familiar with the intricate Texas singer/ songwriter jigsaw puzzle, you probably already know a lot about Taylor. If you're not familiar with Taylor by name, you've probably heard his songs performed by people such as Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett. He has created a multitude of fans and devotees that are legends themselves in the singer/songwriter realm, artists who have long considered Taylor to be a teacher and a lantern bearer whose time is long overdue.

Taylor grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and started playing soul music in his early years, steeping himself in the rich cultural heritage of the black South. "I've written poetry all my life," Taylor recounts. "When I learned how to play guitar, it was a natural progression to write songs." After high school, a brief stint at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, just "didn't work out," according to Taylor.

"Music lured me away," says Taylor. "I thought I'd make my way to California like everybody else back then but I ran out of money and ended up in Houston." It's a good thing he never made it to California, because the musical environment in Houston during the '70s was just what Taylor needed to inspire him.

Taylor learned intricate blues guitar stylings from music legends Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb and Mississippi Fred McDowell while working at the Family Hand club. Later, he developed his own unique guitar picking style, that would be imitated by many of his contemporaries from the early Houston days, such as Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, and Nanci Griffith. "There were no lines drawn in the sand between musical genres in Houston back in those days," Taylor remembers. "You were just a musician. I believe so many great writers came out of that scene because you could learn from others. Isn't that the point of this whole thing?"

In 1977 Taylor was a winner of the "New Folk" competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Shameless Love, his first album, came out in 1981, and after a hiatus of almost 14 years, he returned with the self-titled Eric Taylor, released in 1995. His eponymous release was chosen as the 1996 Kerrville Folk Festival Album of the Year. Three years later he released Resurrect, and it was subsequently named one of the "100 essential records of all time" by Buddy magazine. Taylor has headlined the prestigious Newport Folk Festival, played National Public Radio's "Mountain Stage" and has appeared on both "Late Night With David Letterman" with Nanci Griffith and "Austin City Limits" with Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, and Robert Earl Keen.

"To say that Eric Taylor is one of the finest writers of our time, would be an understatement," Nanci Griffith says. "If you miss an opportunity to hear Eric Taylor, you have missed a chance to hear a voice I consider the William Faulkner of songwriting in our current time." Griffith has recorded several of Taylor's songs, including "Deadwood," "Storms," "Dollar Matinee" and "Ghost in the Music," which they wrote together. Lyle Lovett, who has recorded Taylor's "Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning," “Whooping Crane,” “Understand You,” and with whom Taylor co-wrote the immensely popular "Fat Babies," compares Taylor's narrative voice to that of Bruce Springsteen. Iain Matthews claims, "Once you become a Taylor fanatic, it gives one immense joy and pride to be able to enlighten others to the man's work."

2001 brought forth Scuffletown, and shortly following its release, Taylor was a featured artist on "Austin City Limit's" and NPR's "Morning Edition." The Kerrville Tapes (2003) is his first live album, recorded during three years of appearances at the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival.

In 2004, heeding repeated requests by fans and media, Taylor re-mastered the vinyl Shameless Love and reissued it as a CD with 2 never-released-before bonus tracks.

In the spring of 2005, Taylor returned to Rock Romano's Red Shack in Houston to record his 5th studio album, The Great Divide. Garnering rave reviews at home and abroad, The Great Divide quickly reached #3 on the Euro Americana Chart and in 2006 was named one of the Top Releases Most Played by Folk Radio.

Hollywood Pocketknife, released in 2007, is a 10-song collection that shows Taylor in his prime as a writer and performer, with his exquisite narrative style, his keen, studied observation of the human spirit, and his intricate, roots-driven guitar work. Produced by Taylor, Hollywood Pocketknife also features a stellar cast of musicians, including Eric Demmer (saxophone), David Webb (keyboard, Hammond organ), Mathias Schneider (lap steel), James Gilmer (percussion), Vince Bell (vocals), Steven Fromholz (vocals), and Susan Lindfors (vocals).

In January 2008, Eric Taylor and Hollywood Pocketknife were nominated for FolkWax's Artist Of The Year and Album Of The Year.

In early 2011 Taylor decided to bring together some of his oldest friends and favorite musicians for a live recording. In May 2011 we recorded 2 nights live at The Red Shack studio in Houston, Texas. There was a film crew and live studio audience. Nanci Griffith flew in from Nashville to sing, Lyle Lovett came in to sing, Denice Franke and Susan Lindfors Taylor came in to sing, Marco Python Fecchio flew in from Milan, Italy to play electric guitar, and James Gilmer came in to play percussion. We captured 2 magical nights of music and friendship and Houston history. The performances are stunning, and this Live At The Red Shack CD is unlike anything out there. It's a combination live record / retrospective record / celebration of friends. Named One Of The Top 10 Albums Of The Year (Texas Music magazine) and Best Of 2012 – Live Album (Third Coast Music magazine).

A mesmerizing performer, 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, The Green Note (London), 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, Boston Folk Festival, Glasgow Americana Festival (Scotland), Take Root (The Netherlands), and Roots of Heaven Festival (The Netherlands).

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT ERIC TAYLOR

Al Kaufman, Atlanta Music Guide
Taylor may sing of the past, of bar rooms and hay fields and even Johnny Cash, but his characters want the same things we do. They want love and redemption. They want some fun and happiness. They want respect and sometimes even a little vengeance. Taylor’s people are just like us, it’s just that their tales are exquisitely told.

Kim Salls – Houston
"Joseph Cross" isn't 11 minutes long. Time actually stops when Eric is singing it.

Lucy Bonnington
[Joseph Cross] – That's the song I stopped my car to listen to, and was late to work. Nothing was ever the same after.

John Conquest, 3rd Coast Music
Live At The Red Shack puts some of Taylor's best songs in new settings, but, more importantly, it offers them live, which is what he does better than almost anyone. The extraordinary intensity he brings to bear, his idiosyncratic spacing and unexpected stresses, make him unique. You don't just listen to Eric Taylor, you experience him.

Peter Cooper, M Magazine
Live at the Red Shack, an album recorded in front of 20 invited studio audience members, . . . presents Taylor as a singular, remarkable artist. Most of the time, Tayor growls portraits of the dangerous and the endangered: “You can learn to cry in the cradle, you can learn to lie in jail,” he sings. But Taylor always finds a heart in the darkness, as in “Visitors From Indiana,” a song less about the Kennedy assassination than about the slight, sad details of human connection: “I wonder what that girl is gonna do now/ Left her roses in the car, God knows.”

Lyle Lovett
I’m always the opening act when I’m around Eric. I love his voice, and he has a great narrative quality and sense of detail. He sort of takes you out of your own reality and into the reality of his songs. It’s good writing no matter how you cut it.

Steve Earle
He’s the real deal. Eric Taylor was one my heroes and teachers when I started playing around Houston in the early 1970s.

Maverick magazine (UK)
Eric Taylor came on stage at the Maze in Nottingham without any ceremony. He started a little blues riff on his blond acoustic guitar (a beautiful-sounding, handmade 'Ross-Kinscherff'). He played for his audience but never to the crowd. He didn't look for cliched climaxes or manufactured endings. It was always an intimate gig, a reflective affair, an evening for devotees...I went with a couple of players, guys who know the mysteries of dadgad, who understand a little about the merits of a B string dropped down to A and the quiet craft of a good song well written. They stood either side of me and looked mean if they thought I was going to be critical in any way. They kept pointing out things, making sure I understood; they wanted the man looked after. Eric Taylor seems to inspire that sort of devotion, that sort of affection, that sort of regard; like he is an endangered species -- maybe he is.

Charlie Hunter, Flying Under Radar Productions
Eric Taylor is one of the few artists I’ve ever seen with a greatness that wreathes about him as he takes the stage, no matter what size the venue. An audience instinctively knows to shut up and pay attention. This is a man who takes the art of songwriting – and the art of performance – seriously. And, at the end of the set, the audience will have been transported some place and back again. Eric Taylor doesn’t just make you feel the sun and taste the dust of Texas, he takes you places and puts you inside people’s minds. From prison inmates trying to fathom the jumble of their lives to little kids watching their family implode, Eric Taylor makes it real. Aspiring – and accomplished – songwriters leave Eric Taylor shows shaking their heads in awe. And well they should.

Nathaniel Kunkel
. . .Thinking about some of the music by musicians I love — Buddy Holly, Arlo Guthrie, James Taylor, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Eric Taylor, Karla Bonoff, Sting, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Nat King Cole, and Frank Zappa. You know, the good stuff. The stuff that could, and still does, enthrall me.

Columbia Free Times
Taylor emerged from the same ’70s Texas folk scene as Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark; though his name might not ring as loudly, Taylor’s songs are as genius, melding the distinct blues of Lightnin’ Hopkins with beat-poet starkness. A towering, if quiet, giant among songwriters, Taylor’s tales are haunting and skeletal, and he tells them with conviction, even if they make him, haunted, flinch.

Bailey Jones - Sundilla Acoustic Concerts
Booking Eric Taylor has become a regular, automatic thing. In fact, if I didn’t get to see him perform for us every couple of years, I’d check his schedule and go see him somewhere else. A few chords and a couple of words are all it takes to transport me to the middle of the world where his songs are born.

Bill Morrissey
I think Eric Taylor is one of the best writers working today. He has his own voice and his own vision. His arrangements on Resurrect are beautifully sparse, only what’s needed is there. His lyrics are equally spare and right to the point. He is Texas, but he doesn’t drag the whole state behind him or wave it like a banner. My girlfriend made the mistake of lending me Resurrect and now she know’s she’ll never get it back.

Nanci Griffith
Eric Taylor’s work always garners praise from me. Resurrect is 11 stars for 11 songs of marvelous integrity in timeless storytelling. If you miss an opportunity to hear Eric Taylor in concert you have missed a chance to hear a voice I consider the William Faulkner of songwriting in our current time, and you will miss the rare opportunity to watch the hands of one of America’s most unusual guitarists, with lyrics that will nail your heart to your ear and mind. For me to say that Eric Taylor is one of the finest writers of our time is an understatement.

Joan Baez
Eric Taylor....a very gifted songwriter. It was a high point for me performing "Strong Enough For Two" with him at the Newport Folk Festival. Hope to work more with him.


Michael Perry
Eric Taylor: One of the finest lyricists I’ve ever known. Scuffletown still transfixes me, after all this time. Bottom line: American literature, plus guitar.
Mike Regenstreif, Sing Out!
Eric Taylor has been one of the finest southern songwriters for more than three decades, and Hollywood Pocketknife, marked by plainspoken but authoritative singing, ranks among his finest work. One thing I've always loved about Eric's music is the way his songs are often from a character's perspective, completely, or at least seemingly, outside of himself.

James Hardesty, Green Frog Acoustic Tavern (Bellingham, WA)
Eric might be the most influential and inspiring songwriters I have had the pleasure of listening to. Amazing.

Mike Lance, Grey's Pub (Brighton, UK)
One of the best acts I've ever put on at The Greys -- in 20 years of promoting there. The whole place looks forward to his next trip over.

Steve Coccia, The Mansion / Friends of Music (Middletown, NY)
Eric did a great show....His fans will drive from great distance and in nasty weather to see him.

Rob Adams, The Herald (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Eric Taylor got a five-star review in this paper recently, only because the arts editor doesn't let us go
up to 10.

Performing Songwriter Magazine
Eric Taylor has resurfaced as one of Texas’ most revered songsmiths. His songs play in your head like poignant soundtracks with vivid real-life images.

Brum Beat Magazine
Here is a master impressionist. Taylor’s novelistic style of writing allows him to stand shoulder to shoulder with those Texas born literary giants, Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy.

Mike Paget, U.U. Coffeehouse (Columbia, SC)
We get to watch a fair number of talents in this labor-of-love, and occasionally those talents show their genius. Eric was a genius Saturday night.

Acoustic Guitar Magazine
If there’s anything better than Nanci Griffith or Lyle Lovett singing an Eric Taylor tune, It’s Taylor singing it himself...he’s one of those songwriters that has the ability to plop you down in the middle of a story or a situation and make you care that you’re there.

Vin Scelsa, WNEW WXRK New York City
Listening to his record reminds how I felt when I first encountered fellow Texan Guy Clark’s classic, Old No. 1,....that I am in the presence of a uniquely American voice.

No Depression Magazine
His lines and melodies have the concision of the blues, his stories never indulge in ephemeral confessions, they feel necessary, composed somehow from fragments of every man and woman’s story.....distinct as cinema verite.

The Nashville Tennessean
Taylor released the astounding Shameless Love album in 1981 and then left the music business. In 1995, Taylor resurfaced with an excellent self-titled album. Lovett sang harmonies. Three years later he released a masterpiece called Resurrect. One of the finest records of the decade. Taylor has spent the beginning of September 2000 completing a new album called Scuffletown, a batch of songs that stand with anything he’s done, which means anything most anyone has done.

The Oxford American
In the past four years Eric Taylor has released two collections of songs that stand up to and apart from the finest work of (Townes) Van Zandt and (Guy) Clark. Resurrect is the latest such masterpiece...Even taken alone, without the stark but beautiful settings, Taylor’s images, language, and characters are staggering.

The Houston Chronicle
A man cleans himself up and comes back to the light of day in due time, and Taylor’s career is truly in a resurrect mode. With Resurrect he now has an album that captures his longstanding style with a round of poetic new songs...we hear beauty, we see love, redemption, and the light of day.

Arthur Wood, founding editor of Folkwax
Simply said, Eric Taylor is an American treasure.