Eric Taylor, Singer-Songwriter, 1949-2020

Eric Taylor, an internationally touring Houston, Texas-based singer-songwriter, storyteller and guitarist, died March 9 at the age of 70. Taylor released 10 studio and live albums, while his songs have been recorded by such notable artists as Nanci Griffith (to whom he was formerly married) and Lyle Lovett, on whom he was a major influence.

Born (Sept. 25, 1949) and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Taylor became a leading figure in the Texas singer-songwriter scene of the early 1970s after standing himself in Houston in 1970 while en route to California following a brief stint at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

“Music lured me away,” said Taylor in a bio that appears on his website (bluerubymusic.com). “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.” While working at the Family Hand club there, he learned intricate blues guitar stylings from Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb and Mississippi Fred McDowell before developing his own unique and much-imitated guitar picking style.

“There were no lines drawn in the sand between musical genres back in those days,” recalled Taylor, whose contemporaries included the late Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. “You were just a musician. I believe so many great writers came out of that scene because you could learn from others. Just as Clark and Van Zandt influenced him and his narrative storytelling style of songwriting, so too did Taylor inspire others like Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett.

Although Taylor made his recording debut in 1976 as part of a Houston songwriters compilation entitled Through The Dark Nightly, and was a winner of the prestigious New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the Texas Hill Country in 1977, it wasn’t until 1981 that he released his first album, Shameless Love, which the Houston Chronicle named as one of the Top 50 Great Texas Singer-Songwriter Albums in January 2017. Following a hiatus of nearly 14 years, Taylor’s self-titled sophomore release came out on the Austin, TX-based Watermelon Records in 1995. He followed that three years later with Resurrect, which was named one of the “100 essential records of all-time” by the now-defunct Buddy magazine. Among his six albums to follow was Scuffletown, a 2001 release that prompted Taylor’s first headlining appearance on Austin City Limits. He previously appeared on the show a year earlier as a guest of on Lyle Lovett’s 25th season episode, during which Lovett paid tribute to Texas songwriters who inspired him.

Here’s a link to view a video of Eric Taylor performing “Hemingway’s Shotgun” with Lovett on Austin City Limits:
https://vimeo.com/396765167

In addition to these and other appearances on Austin City Limits with Guy Clark and Robert Earl Keen, Taylor also appeared on Late Night with David Letterman with Nanci Griffith, to whom he was married from 1976-1982 and who called him “the William Faulkner of songwriting in our time.” Griffith also recorded several of Taylor’s songs – including “Deadwood,” “Dollar Matinee,” “Storms,” and “Ghost in the Music” (which they co-wrote).

Taylor’s The Kerrville Tapes (2003) was his first live recording and captures performances during three years of appearances at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Over the years, he also played such notable U.S. music festivals as the Newport Folk Festival and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, as well as a number of festivals in Europe and venues across the U.S. and Europe. He also taught at the Kerrville Song School, led songwriting workshops elsewhere, and created The Texas Song Theater in which he was joined by performing songwriters David Olney and Denice Franke on songs and spoken word.

The Great Divide, Taylor’s fifth studio album, reached #3 on the EuroAmericana Chart and was among the most-played releases on folk radio in 2006. That was followed in 2007 by the 10-song collection Hollywood Pocketknife and by Live At The Red Shack, a live recording before a studio audience and featuring some of his oldest friends and favorite musicians, in 2011. Among those who joined him on vocals during two nights of music at the Houston studio in May of that year were Franke, Griffith, Lovett, and Susan Lindfors Taylor.

Taylor’s 10th and final CD, Studio 10 (2013), also was recorded at The Red Shack. Among his nine original songs on it (in addition to a cover of Tim Grimm’s “Cover These Bones”) are two that were written for the Storyworks.TV documentary film Road Kid to Writer – The Tracks of Jim Tully, for which Taylor received an Emmy Award nomination for Music Composition in 2016.