My recent interview with Eric Taylor, a legendary
songwriter and irascible character, got off to a lovely start. While
explaining I wasn’t a real journalist, just a musician writing a
column for much fun and little profit, he told of a recent exchange with a
genuine professional writer.
“Some other journalist from your town called
and his first question was to ask me to tell him a little about my music
— you know, what it was about,” Taylor says in a husky, Texan
drawl drowning in disdain. Then with a laugh he continues, “And I
thought, ‘Can I tell you to f-ck off first and we’ll go from
there?'”
So go his dealings with the willfully ignorant.
Taylor is an artist’s artist. He takes his work seriously and expects
to be treated with thoughtfulness and respect. If you do so then he gladly
reciprocates. If you don’t, well you heard his response. Granted
he’s not for everyone, nor does he intend to be, but for those who
care for a masterful presentation of short story in song he’s
absolutely one of the best.
“A lot of my show is the piece that comes along
with the song, the character development,” he says in explaining his
strong suit of song introduction. “It’s not just storytelling
— not the patter before each song — the story is part of the
piece.”
While we talk on the phone, Taylor tells of storms
caused by Hurricane Gustav blowing by his home near Houston. I hear a train
whistle whine in the background and another strange sound like someone
talking, but with an odd-toned voice.
“Got a parrot. Named after Townes’
son. Had it ’bout 20 years,” he explains.
Townes would be the late, great Townes Van Zandt,
writer of folk-country standards, If I Needed
You, Pancho and
Lefty, and Tecumseh
Valley, hero of dark side singer-songwriters
everywhere, and a compadre and contemporary of Taylor in the fertile
Houston music scene of the 1970s. Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark,
Robert Earl Keen, and Steve Earle are other known Texas entities directly
associated with Taylor somewhere in the span of his nearly four-decade
career.
“It all got started down here by Mickey
Newbury,” he says of the late, immensely talented and successful
musician. “Nobody could ever match him.”
Taylor then lists, along with Newbury’s
incredible songwriting talent and commercial success, other areas in which
the Houston resident garnered no competition, including drinking, partying
and getting girls.
“He really gave us something to shoot
for,” he says with a laugh.
While relating with great respect and reverence
lessons learned in his formative years from old blues players like
Lightning Hopkins and Mississippi Fred McDowell, (“I’ve been a
very lucky f-cker,” I believe were his words), Taylor appreciates
what he was given, yet senses situations aren’t the same for writers
today.
“Some things are not going to come back.
Taking the personal perspective, as a kid it was a very fortunate time in
my life,” he says. “I wouldn’t be the performer I am
today without it. And that’s what’s lost in the writing scene
— the carrying on.”
Eric Taylor performs for WUIS’ Bedrock 66 Live!
concert series on Friday, Sept 5, in the Club Room of the Hoogland Center
for the Arts. Tom Irwin opens at 8 p.m. Tickets are $17, available at
217-523-ARTS or at the door.
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2008.
