Major Works
Albums
- 2013 Taylor Made
- 2012 Sweet Taste of Guitar
- 2010 Beyond the Burning Guitar
- 2004 Rendezvous with the Blues
- 2003 Melvin Taylor and the Slack Band
- 2002 Dirty Pool (Blues)
- 1999 Bang That Bell (Blues)
- 1984 Plays The Blues For You (Blues)
- 1982 Blues On The Run (Blues)
Songs (incomplete listing)
- Texas Flood
- Depression Blues
- Grooving In New Orleans
- Talking To Anna Mae Tin Pan Alley
- All Your Love (I Miss Loving)
- Don’t Throw Your Love On Me So Strong
- T-Bone Shuffle
- Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
- Tequila
Biography of Melvin Taylor
by Nicole Parker (SHS)
Melvin Taylor was born on March 13, 1959, in Jackson, Mississippi. When he was three years old, he and his family moved to Chicago. In Chicago he was introduced to music. His mother’s brother, Floyd Vaughn, taught him how to play the guitar. By the age of twelve, he was working in the clubs with other musicians much older than he was. He taught himself slide playing, finger-picking, and flat-picking styles from listening to his favorite artists, B. B. King, Albert King, and Jimi Hendrix.
During his teenage years, Melvin joined The Transistors, a group who became popular by playing popular music of the 1970’s at talent shows and night clubs. When The Transistors broke up in the early 1980s, Taylor returned to playing blues in Chicago’s clubs. Shortly after, pianist Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins began looking for a guitarist to do a European tour with his group, The Legendary Blues Band. Melvin joined the band for a year and became so popular in Europe that several club bookers wanted him to have his own group. While in Europe, he recorded his first two albums: Blues on the Run (1982) and Plays the Blues for You (1984). Since the 1980’s he has been touring Europe with former members of The Transistors, and they have opened shows for B. B. King, Buddy Guy, Santana, George Benson, and Canned Heat. He spent the remainder of the 1980’s in Chicago with his own group, The Slack Band. They played on a regular basis at a West Side club called Rosa’s Lounge.
In early 1995, Melvin Taylor signed with Evidence Records and released his first album in eleven years called Melvin Taylor and the Slack Band. The record became the best-selling album in Evidence’s music catalog. Another album, Dirty Pool, was released in 1997, and it gave him the reputation as one of the best blues guitarist of this time period. In 2002 Taylor joined with Lucky Peterson (a blues star who had recorded several albums with Taylor twenty years earlier) to produce a new CD called Rendezvous with the Blues. This album contains a seven-minute long tribute to John Lee Hooker which combines Chill Out and The Healer. Rendezvous with the Blues is his fourth new recording on Evidence. Jennifer Keller has been Taylor’s manager for more than five years. She is also the mother of Taylor’s and her four year old son.
Related Websites
Bibliography
- Joe Hauler. “Melvin Taylor.” Rolling Stone 2000. 19 April 2000 <http://www.rollingstone.com>
- Richard Skelly. “Melvin Taylor.” All Music Guide 2000. 19 April 200 <http://allmusic.com>
- http://music.excite.com/artist/biography/-10001