Episode 10 Eddie Taylor

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 EPISODE 10 EDDIE TAYLOR

 Episode 10 is about the life and musical career of Blues Master Eddie Taylor. 

 The titles of releases on my label Big Guitar Music of songs used in this episode include Big Town Playboy and Classic Live Performances vol 3. “Bad Boy” is from On the Jimmy Reed Highway released on Ruf Records (used with permission).

 A music track playlist for this podcast is available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple, and YouTube for your listening pleasure.

 The musicians featured in the tracks on this episode are Derek O’Brien, James Cotton, Jimmie Vaughan, Paul Jr., Rich Chilleri, Ronnie James, and Wes Starr.

 Omar’s Picks for further study of copyrighted music not used in Episode 10 are the song “Blue Monday at Kansas City Red’s” from the album Carey Bell’s Blues Harp, “Knockin’ at Your Door” from the album Still Not Ready for Eddie on Antones Records, and “Bad Boy” by Eddie Taylor on Vee Jay Records.

 Visit my website for more info  www.omarandthehowlers.com

 Thank you to Thomas Ruf and Ruf Records for permission to use “Bad Boy” from On the Jimmy Reed Highway.

 Thank you to Matthew Garza (Upwork.com) for his work mastering this podcast.

Transcript

EPISODE 10 EDDIE TAYLOR    

Thank you for joining me today on Brown Shoes Blues. Like Jimmy Rogers with Muddy Waters, Homesick James with Elmore James, and Brewer Phillips with Hound Dog Taylor, when you think of Jimmy Reed, you have to acknowledge Eddie Taylor's contributions to the sound. In many ways, Eddie was practically the architect of the Jimmy Reed style. Eddie played the bottom end guitar boogie bass lines that were the foundation and glue of the Jimmy Reed formula. Jimmy sang lazy southern drawl vocals over high end ornamental guitar lines. This was combined with the laid back blues harmonica played on a metal neck rack, delivered over the rock steady, unwavering guitar rhythm of Eddie Taylor. This rhythm is what propelled the song and created the soul of the sound. Jimmy and Eddie, Eddie and Jimmy. 

Eddie Taylor, although overlooked and ignored by the music industry, he was the magic behind the sound of some of the most recognized names in the blues. His cohorts included John Lee Hooker, Snooky Pryor, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Carey Bell, John Brim, Walter Horton, Floyd Jones, Johnny Little John and others. Eddie was highly respected by many musicians and critics, but he always seemed to fly just under the radar of the general public. For all of his accomplishments and recordings with other name musicians, he will always be linked to the legacy of Jimmy Reed.

This song is "Bad Boy" written by Eddie Taylor and is a track from On The Jimmy Reed Highway released in 2007 on Ruf Records. I am on vocals, Jimmie Vaughan and Derek O'Brien on guitars, Ronnie James on bass, and Wes Starr on drums.

After Albert King brought Eddie to the attention of Vee Jay Records, he was given an audition by Vivian Carter and Jimmy Bracken, the owners of the company. After the audition, the owners were attracted to the vocals and songs of Jimmy Reed. Taylor was then assigned to accompany Reed, and became the band leader of the VJ sessions that yielded the hit songs "You Don't Have to Go," "Boogie in the Dark," "Pretty Thing," "Ain't That Loving You, Baby?" "You've Got Me Dizzy," "Honest I Do," "Take Out Some Insurance," "Going to New York," "Baby, What You Want Me to Do?," and a multitude of others. 

Eddie Taylor was born January the 29th, 1923 in Benoit, Mississippi, and was up to his neck in the blues from birth. Benoit is located in the Delta, and Eddie grew up teaching himself how to play the guitar after his mother ordered him an acoustic instrument in 1936 from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. He didn't know how to tune the guitar, so his mother's boyfriend, Popcorn, tuned it and showed him just enough to get him started. It didn't take long before Eddie was

teaching his childhood friend, Jimmy Reed, the rudiments of the guitar. Little did they know they would be reunited in Chicago 20 years later, making blues history together.

Another musician Taylor had contact with was Ike Turner, who was one of Eddie's schoolmates. Eddie began performing at venues in nearby Leland and other Delta towns, even on occasion traveling to Clarksdale. As he got older, he began to play more extensively throughout the Delta region. He grew up immersed in the blues and fell under the spell of some of the Delta's finest musicians. He saw many of these players at performances in local juke joints of the area and even busked on the street corners of some of the towns. You could make a few bucks playing the blues in some of the small clubs, but there was also money to be made performing blues, gospel, ragtime, and even hillbilly music on street corners.

Eddie Taylor and Johnny Shines both said they could draw crowds on the corners by playing country hits by Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, and by playing "You Are My Sunshine" by Governor Jimmy Davis. That's one everybody liked, and they would gather up, and the money would flow. They would have a hat full of coins after you played "You Are My Sunshine." Everybody did it. Everybody thinks that the blues is just the blues. All of those guys could play hillbilly stuff. They could play it all. They played whatever made people put the coins in the hat. And I don't blame them. 

They adopted the attitude of doing whatever was necessary to keep going and be able to play music, and Eddie was able to meet people like Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton, Big Joe Williams, Muddy Waters, and others. One of the other players Taylor came into contact with was Dave 'Honey Boy' Edwards, who was about his same age. They were playing on street corners and in some of the same clubs. Honey Boy also adopted the same 'anything goes' motif and was skilled in blues, gospel, and hillbilly selections.

In 1943, Eddie Taylor relocated to Memphis and spent the next six years there before moving to Chicago. Upon arriving in Memphis, Eddie started playing with Joe Hill Lewis and with Lewis's brother Milton playing the drums. It was at this time Eddie bought his first electric guitar and an amplifier. Eddie was driving a truck at the time and making good money, so he ordered the guitar and amp from a mail order catalog. Good old Sears and Roebuck to the rescue again. Taylor stayed in the Memphis area a while playing with different musical acts. Then he decided to relocate to Chicago to try and prove his fortunes. Eddie was able to get a job with a packing company and started playing with Big Walter Horton, James Scott Jr. and others in small clubs in the area. There are several artists Eddie worked with on live engagements, but he was responsible for casting a huge shadow on the recordings in the Windy City. 

After moving to Chicago from Memphis Eddie worked frequently on Maxwell Street with a number of different artists. Maxwell Street was the first stop for most musicians arriving in Chicago from destinations in the South. Although the pay for Maxwell Street performances was solely derived from tips, it could be quite lucrative as the area was a large open-air flea market with lots of live bands, all kinds of food choices, and any kind of merchandise you could dream up in one place, usually at a discount price. Most musicians made more money at the market than they could in the clubs. That being said, the market was open on weekends and musicians could play at the market during the day and the clubs at night. Not a bad deal. Play for good tips during the day and still play a paying job in the clubs that night. This went on forever until the city shut down Maxwell Street, bulldozing the entire area, and building an exit off the interstate where the small businesses and markets had flourished. 

In 1949, the market was moved to a new location, but it was never really the same as the glory days of its original location. Eddie Taylor started his rise to a local icon playing at this landmark historic market, just like the musicians arriving from the deep south. Others that thrived from playing at the market included Bo Diddley, Little Walter, Billy Boy Arnold, Robert Nighthawk, John Ganderson, Big John Rincher, Carey Bell, Maxwell Street Jimmy, and many, many others. The merchants on the street were Jewish immigrants and were more than happy to allow the musicians to run an electrical extension cord into their stores so the band could play out in the street in front of the business locations. This was beneficial for the merchants and the musicians. Make no bones about it. The music on Maxwell Street was loud, electric, urban and country blues, and was responsible in many ways for helping to usher electric Chicago blues into the city's clubs and recording studios. Hooray, hooray for Maxwell Street. 

Besides the obvious hit songs I mentioned  earlier in this episode, Eddie also recorded "Do You Want Me to Cry?", "I Feel So Bad," "Bull Cow Blues," "I'm a Country Boy," "I'm Sitting Here," "Playboy Boogie," "Ready for Eddie," "Jackson Town," "I'm Gonna Love You," "Stroll Out West," and "13 Highway." These titles were all cut under Eddie Taylor's name. I am not even including the colossal body of work he created with other artists. 

That was "Upside Your Head," an Eddie Taylor original song from my Big Town Playboy release.

In 1953, Taylor recorded the single "School Days on My Mind," backed on the B side with "Ain't Times Hard," credited to Floyd Jones on VJ Records. The players were Jones on vocals and guitar, Snooky Pryor on the harmonica, Sunnyland Slim on piano, and Alfred Wallace on drums. Also in 1953, Eddie and this lineup recorded "Any Old Lonesome Day" for the VJ label. In 1954, Eddie recorded with Snooky Pryor and his trio for Job Records. The musicians included Pryor on harmonica, Moody Jones on guitar, and Alfred Wallace on drums. The recording tracks included "Crying Shame," "8, 9, 10," and other titles that became Chicago classics. Eddie recorded with Sunnyland Slim and Snooky Pryor on the tracks "Going Back to Memphis" and "The Devil is a Busy Man". This release was on Blue Lake Records out of Chicago. 

From 1955 to 1959, Eddie cut singles for VJ Records that would be compiled to make the LP I'm John Lee Hooker. that was released in 1959. The songs Eddie recorded with Hooker included "Dimples," "I'm So Excited," "Little Wheel," "I'm in the Mood," "Maudie," "Every Night," "Time is Marching," and "Baby Lee." After these important singles and the John Lee Hooker LP, there came a number of albums that featured Eddie Taylor as a sideman. In March of 1955, Jimmy Reed had his first big hit on VJ with "You Don't Have to Go," and another hit in January of 1956 with "I Don't Go For That." For the next two years, everything he recorded hit the charts, making him the best-selling artist in the Chicago blues. VJ even challenged Chess Records as the top slot label. Jimmy Reed was off and running, and Eddie Taylor was a big reason why. Even though Reed was considered to be the star, Eddie did reap benefits from his partnership and became one of the most Important guitar players in Chicago. He was in demand for both recordings and live shows by the top artists in town. 

Many were recorded with Jimmy Reed, including I'm Jimmy Reed in 1958 on VJ Records, Soulin' in 1967 on VJ, Big Boss Man in 1968 on BluesWay Records, and Down in Virginia in 1969 on BluesWay Records. Recordings done with Carey Bell include Blues Harp in 1969 on Delmark Records, Big Walter with Carey Bell on Alligator Records in 1972, and Last Night by Carey Bell in 1973 on BluesWay Records.

Street Talking was released on Muse Records in 1975 that was split down the middle with seven Tracks by Taylor and seven tracks by Elmore James, with Elmore James tracks being played by Eddie Taylor on guitar along with Elmore's slide guitar. Eddie also played guitar on a record released by JSP Records in 1982 with Joe Carter and Kansas City Red. Woo! Eddie was a busy man. This list is by no means a complete list of his work Taylor recorded quite a few titles for the Black and Blue label out of France, along with others.

Besides his ability to back up other musicians, he was also a great artist in his own right. He released several classic singles for the VJ label, including "Bad Boy," "Big Town Playboy," "Ride Em On Down," and "You'll Always Have a Home." After these important recordings as a solo artist, several labels issued albums on Taylor, including his 1972 title "I Feel So Bad" on Advent Records. These releases prove that Eddie Taylor was a successful artist and capable of having his own recording career. 

That was another song written by Eddie Taylor, "Big Town Playboy," with Jimmie Vaughan and Derek O'Brien on guitars, Ronnie James on bass, Wes Starr on drums, me on vocals, and the wonderful James Cotton on harmonica from my release of the same name.

The most renowned clubs Eddie Taylor played were the Elsewhere Lounge with Jimmy Reed, Club Zanzibar with Muddy Waters, the 34 Club and Silvio's with Elmore James, and at Big John's and Silvio's with the Paul Butterfield Band. He played other well-known clubs in Chicago as the Eddie Taylor Band, including Pepper's Lounge, the Flamingo Club, and Eddie Shaw's Place. He also played the Savoy in San Francisco in 1976. In addition to Taylor's club dates, he performed off and on with John Lee Hooker throughout the U.S. from 1954 to 1957. In 1955, Eddie toured the U.S. and Mexico with Jimmy Reed, and he traveled to Spain and France in 1970 to perform with blues pianist, Roosevelt Sykes.

As Eddie Taylor's reputation spread, he was in high demand in both the United States and internationally. He performed as the Eddie Taylor Band and also under the names of many of his friends and other important blues artists. Taylor toured extensively in Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival in 1966 to 1968, and again, in the eighties. He joined John Lee Hooker for a European tour in 1969 and played on the American Blues Legends Festival circuit in 1973. He toured other festival dates in Europe and Japan in 1977 and in the Netherlands in 1979. In America, Eddie Taylor played the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1970 and 1972. He played the European Chicago Blues Festival in 1973 and the Chicago Blues Festival in Chicago, Illinois in 1975. He continued to work the Chicago Blues Festival into the 80s. To my knowledge, Eddie Taylor traveled to more locations internationally than any other artist I have discussed so far in my episodes. 

Sadly, in 1984, Eddie died on Christmas Day, bringing his long and illustrious career to a close. His death was a tremendous loss for the music world and left a void in the Chicago blues scene that is felt until this day. Chicago would never be the same without Eddie Taylor. He was laid to rest in Restville Cemetery in Worth, Illinois. Eddie Taylor was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2010, Eddie was honored with a Blues Trail Marker in his hometown of Benoit, Mississippi. His marker also paid tribute to other Benoit natives, including James Peck Curtis famous for his work with Sonny Boy Williamson and the King Biscuit Time Radio Program out of Helena, Arkansas, Jesse Clay, Southern Soul Star, Nathaniel Kimball, and blues artist James Deshay, later of the St. Louis blues scene. 

Eddie Taylor's family played an important role in his later career. Chicago was a big urban city, but the blues community was a closely knit group. Back then family ties meant something. One of the strong blues family dynasties was the Muddy Waters family. Three of Muddy's sons became major blues artists following in their father's footsteps. The Willie Dixon family consisted of 12 kids, including Willie's son and grandson who played bass and a daughter, Shirley, who ran their blues foundation, but most of the children had ties to the blues world in one way or another. 

Jimmy Reed's family included Mama Reed, who co-wrote songs and sang backup vocals, Jimmy Jr., named Booney, played guitar and bass on many of his father's recordings, and other siblings were highly involved in keeping their blues legacy alive. Carey Bell's kids are Lurrie, who became a well-known and respected singer and guitarist, Steve who played harmonica, Tyson played bass, and James played drums. Along with their dad, they performed together and personified the term family band. Another family of importance in Chicago was Big Daddy Kinsey, whose sons all played with their dad, but who branched off to become the Kinsey Report in later years. Donald Kinsey played with such musical greats as Albert King, Bob Marley, and Roy Buchanan. 

The blueprint for family bands belongs to Eddie Taylor. His wife Vera sang with Eddie and became an important singer in her own right. From the group of eight children, seven became musicians who played in the family band and contributed greatly to the Chicago Blues community.

Eddie Taylor's accomplishments, both as a sideman and solo recording artist are remarkable. His impact on the blues genre cannot be denied. His ability to make everything better than it would have been without him, and his dedication and love for the music speak volumes about the man. No matter who he was playing for, you can bet he made every recording or live performance better. He did not receive the accolades and respect he publicly deserved and was seldom mentioned in any awards presentations. This did not curb Taylor's contributions one bit, and he continued to do what he did best. You can't underestimate the influence he had on the careers of many award-winning artists, including Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker. Eddie Taylor had the Midas touch. 

Here's a song I wrote with Eddie Taylor and Jimmy Reed in mind. This is called "Big Legs" from my release, Classic Live Performances Volume 3.

All right. These are Omar's Picks for this episode: The song "Blue Monday at Kansas City Reds" from the album Carey Bell's Blues Harp on Delmark Records, players include Eddie Taylor, Pinetop Perkins, and Jimmy Dawkins with Carey Bell on the chromatic harp. Now you want to hear chromatic harp treat, Carey Bell can do it. From the album Still Not Ready for Eddie on Antone's Records, produced by the great Angela Strehli, this is a track called "Knockin at Your Door." This features Eddie Taylor, Jimmy Reed, Luther Tucker, Snooky Pryor, and Sunnyland Slim. Now that, to me, is a, good lineup. The single, "Bad Boy", on VJ Records, written and performed by Eddie Taylor, with Jimmy Reed on harmonica. 

Be sure to check out the music and great memorabilia available at the iconic Antone's Record Shop in Austin, Texas. Owned by my friends Mike Buck and Eve Monsees, their inventory has one of the best selections of every genre of music in any format you would desire. Visit them in person or online at Antone's Record Shop.com You'll be glad you did. 

Thank you to John and Charlene from Mississippi for their loyal support of me, my music, and this podcast. Thank you. 

Thank you, Thomas Ruf and Ruf Records for permission to use "Bad Boy" from On the Jimmy Reed Highway. and thank you for joining me for another episode of Brown Shoes Blues. Be sure to tune in for the next Blues Master. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!