Love at first note : Linwood Taylor

Blues on the rock

There's a bluesman that I want to tell you about though he's not really well-known outside the blues specialists circles.  “He has a white blues sound”, “he plays like a white”… are the first thoughts that will come up your mind. Not contemptuous thoughts, blues has only one color : blue. But the fact is that when you hear him on guitar, you think more to Jimmy Thackery than to B.B. King. Only when he starts to sing you realize this guy is an Afro-American. Not from Mississippi, not from Louisiana, not either from Chicago or Texas, but from the D.C. area. His name ? I'm tempted to let you guess… Just joking ! The man is Linwood Taylor.

Jimi Hendrix, a main influence
for Linwood Taylo

According to a 2003 article by Carlo Rotella published in the Washington Post (1), “the romantic myth of the natural bluesman  […] as he sits on the porch with bottle and guitar after a day in the fields or on the street corner, is mostly sentimental claptrap founded on facile assumptions about race and identity [contributing] to the enduring popularity of musicians of the 1930s like Robert Johnson [...] and Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter [...]. This myth contributed [...] to the revival in the 1960s of a taste for the blues among rock fans looking for cultural bedrock on which to ground their pop preferences.”

Such was Taylor's approach. When he got his first guitar at 11 years old, he was attracted to rock music, listening to Hendrix and Cream's Clapton, before searching for the roots of rock and discovering blues through the likes of Muddy Waters, Albert King, Albert Collins… His hybrid style indeed reflects such a musical journey.

For more than 30 years, Taylor has performed with his own band and with some of the biggest names in blues such as Albert Collins, Lonnie Mack and Joe Louis Walker.

Taylor with Walker

When the latter with whom Taylor had toured for a couple of years called him in 2010 to announce he was dropping him from the band, probably because he had too strong a musical personality, far from getting discouraged, or even angry, Taylor got more determined than ever to become known for himself rather than for those he had been backing.

He set up a new band and became himself the front man. And when Alligator Records refused to take him on their roster, Taylor didn't mind much, he had been self-producing his records for several years. “Now you just do it on your own”, he explains. “You don’t worry about the record company because there’s not a lot that you can’t do for yourself that they can do” (interview to a Fredericksburg, VA, newspaper).
He also explains that he hums his guitar solos' melodies, “an old trick used by a lot of jazz guys” as well as many legendary blues players like Albert Collins and Albert King.

Taylor's powerful mix of his rock, blues and soul influences is obvious in his mischievously titled 2000 album Make Room For The Paying Customer. Rocking beat and scorching blues solos. Blues-rock in the literal sense of the term with some Hendrix-inspired guitar licks.

The repertoire runs from blues classics like “Black Cat Bone” or the rootsy cover of “Good Morning Little School Girl” to hot funk with “Can't Get A Woman” and “Don't Burn Down The Bridge” both carried by a mean jazz-rockiness bass (Steve Taylor), to a pounding version of Will Dixon's “Same Thing”, to the great Hendrix piece of wah-wah guitar of “Charm City Pt.2”, and the muscular “Mercy”.
Altogether Taylor penned seven of the twelve tracks, including the fast but soulful “Don't Dis Me”, “Blues Man” and “G Thanh”.
The album doesn't leave you with one moment of rest, it shakes from A to Z. Anything but normal for a roadhouse musician who has been spending most nights making clubs and bars patrons dance for decades.

Two Sides, who was just released this year, might well lead him to a wider recognition from the blues public who will certainly look out for his older opuses. It remains in the same vein as his previous recordings, featuring covers and originals, except that Taylor invited fellow guitarist-singer Sol Roots on four tracks, and that it is enlightened by a combination of acoustic and electric sound on most of the songs, which gives the album an original texture.

Sol Roots

The covers include the rocking opening “I'm Good”. a Bonnie Lee creation later covered by Johnny Winter, a fine version of Albert Kings' “I Wanna Get Funky” with Sol Roots, the excellent Slim Harpo's swamp boogie “Shake Your Hips”, an acoustic version of “Rollins' And Tumbling'”, a Delta blues classic first recorded in 1929 by Hambone Willie Newborn and later popularized by Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson's “Dust My Broom” made notably famous by Elmore James and delivered here on acoustic slide guitar.

The originals : the straight blues “Psychic” with Sol Roots, the southern rock inspired “Safe to Say” with a Allman Brothers feel, “Love My Baby”, a nice rhythmic acoustic country blues. Two more tracks featuring Sol Roots complete the list : “Devil In The Details”, with some echoes of a JJ Cale sound, and finally a revisit of “Psychic” in a ballad version.
Vocally, Taylor has gained in hoarseness and maturity. This fine bluesman has nothing more to prove. ■

(1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/2003/08/24/linwood-taylors-blues/c4b09fa1-1d35-4bef-8a85-b87949b32bda/ (free registration required)

Partial Discography

These are some of Taylor's releases that I've heard of. There's probably more obscure recordings...
► Live at The Colonial Seafood (1991, self produced)
► Take This And Stay Out Of Trouble (1993, self produced)
► Make Room for the Paying Customer (2000, Mystery Media Inc.)
► Two Sides (2024, Zavuya Music LLC)

Albums (Audio)
► Make Room for the Paying Customer (2000), excerpts :

→ “Charm City Pt 2” : https://youtu.be/6HQO3rThFRU
→ “Don't Dis Me” : https://youtu.be/6fvObx01VNI
► Two Sides (2024) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l0ycI2x1okDI8wX_vVen0KMTd3bMiAaVw
As a sideman
► Joe Louis Walker - Blues Conspiracy: Live on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise (2010) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_knFBO8rIkpVYitmoWupWY4Z3BTYUrDai4

Documentary
►
The Last Roadhouse, a one-hour doc featuring Linwood Taylor with Wolf Crescenze (bass) & Andy Hamburger (percussion) : https://youtu.be/HbVoJYpW7Rk

Live Videos
► With Joe Louis Walker :

→ The Haunt, Ithaca, NY, 2009 : https://youtu.be/k3geqbxMZ2o
→ Chan's, Woonsocket, RI, 2010 : https://youtu.be/AzIeSkI4SvY
→ “Reelin' and Rockin'”, The Blue Rooster, Sarasota, FL, 2017 : https://youtu.be/B0-9nHqEfKc
► With The Nighthawks, Sunset Grille, 2010 : https://youtu.be/l2_U4JD3MRM
► With James Mabry, Outta the Way Cafe, Derwood, MD, 2011 : https://youtu.be/LUOsIa67TPc

► The Old Bowie Town Grille, Bowie, MD, 2011 :

→ https://youtu.be/dZbCh_WoOp4
→ "Mary Had a Little Lamb" : https://youtu.be/NdX4aW7cb5E
→ "Who Knows?" (Hendrix) : https://youtu.be/XYSy-B0AFxk

► JV's, Falls Church, VA, 2012 :
→ “Goin' Down” : https://youtu.be/wgXVZVD7to0
→ “I'll Play The Blues For You“ : https://youtu.be/lWlEpV9f4m8
► The Cat's Eye Pub, Baltimore, MD, 2014 :

→ “Soulshine” : https://youtu.be/OvRkZJ06nJ4
→ “Help Me” : https://youtu.be/TZJA2cm6jEA
→ “Little Wing” : https://youtu.be/oQkuVSzaoeY
→ “Let It Bleed” : https://youtu.be/vy9nlS4JODE
► With Clarence Turner & Sol Roots, JV's, Falls Church, VA, 2014 :
→ “Ain't No Sunshine” : https://youtu.be/Ee2DvMCATXI
→ “Blackjack” : https://youtu.be/oZegrgxqrvc
► Linwood Taylor Trio, Jazz Club Teplice, Czech Republic, 2017 : https://youtu.be/xY9C3-HaqsE

► “Red House”, The Gentry, Washington D.C., 2017 : https://youtu.be/0hHUbf-VGLk

► “Dust My Broom”, New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt, MD, 2017 : https://youtu.be/8CtWUiU06Fg
► "Catfish Blues", Cat's Eye Pub, Baltimore, MD, 2018 : https://youtu.be/oJFseDIkZTQ

► Lahinch Tavern, Potomac, MD, 2019 : https://youtu.be/UjP4cYIIkPE
► 11th Annual Silver Spring Blues Festival, 2019 : https://youtu.be/r5aY9z8cffg
► New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt, MD, 2019 : https://youtu.be/WkVBSRHyJJA
► Hershey's, Gaithersburg, MD, 2020 : https://youtu.be/zOqAYCYbGcA
► Linwood Taylor Band with Sol Roots, JV's, Falls Church VA, 2021 (12 tracks) : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOyXbrZmFa7YQ7ZVf1dB3npLEZocaTVgA

► The Smokehouse, Frederick, MD, 2021 :

→ “Who Do You Love?” : https://youtu.be/FT3LbKM6bt0
→ “What'd I Say” : https://youtu.be/haymfvL4k74
→ “Hoochie Coochie Man” : https://youtu.be/n99P8Al5_XA
► “Southbound” with the Allman-Betts Band, The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA, 2021 : https://youtu.be/eXJWMSiMXe0
► "Midnight Lake Michigan" with The Devon Allman Project, Annapolis, MD, 2022 : https://youtu.be/OYRborZemdA