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Eric Taylor

Venue: Grateful Freds @ The Atkinson
Town: Southport
Date: 1/10/14
Website: http://www.bluerubymusic.com

Texas has produced some of America's finest singer-songwriters - Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, to name but a few. To this illustrious list should be added the name of Eric Taylor, an exceptional songwriter and storyteller, who was tonight's special guest at Grateful Fred's.

I have to admit that, until recently, my knowledge of Eric was limited to his association with two other great songwriters, Nanci Griffiths and Lyle Lovett, both of whom have recorded Eric's songs.

However, further investigation revealed that Eric is far more than a source of songs for other artists; he has released nine of his own albums since 1981. He is also an exceptional performer, as the appreciative Grateful Fred's audience discovered tonight.

The evening got underway with the Grateful Fred's House Band [GFHB] who tonight were saying a fond farewell to their melodious singer/fiddle player Karine Woodward, who will be greatly missed by all Fredhead's. To mark the occasion, Karine and the band performed one of her favourite songs, Nickel Creek's "Out Of The Woods", as well as her own heartfelt composition "Time Zone Blues", about being separated from the one you love by time as well as distance.

Tonight, the GFHB were joined by top Liverpool accordionist Helen Maher, who has played alongside a wide variety of musicians including Pete Best, Mick Jones, Turin Brakes, The Farm and Pete Wylie. Backed by the GFHB, Helen sang country classics "Tennessee Waltz" and "Walking After Midnight", as well as a playing an instrumental tribute to Jimmy Shand !

Next up was Eric Taylor's regular support act, Stuart Warburton, who also acts as Eric's driver and merch seller. Stuart is an accomplished singer-songwriter from Bury and has also lived in San Antone in Texas. Stuart played several of his own compositions about personal relationships - "This Battlefield", "Legacy Of You", "Maelstrom" and "Dolores"["You know where the door is"] as well as the rather harrowing [but topical] "Some Memories Never Leave" [about the victims of child abuse and domestic violence]. On a lighter note, Stuart gave us his homage to Dan Penn "Say It Like You Mean It" and finished with "Three Chords And The Truth", about his days with rockabilly band The Rhythmaires.

Eric Taylor is a remarkable performer. He introduces his songs with colourful monologues, some of which are almost as long as the songs themselves. Even if Eric didn't sing or play a note, it would be worth going to see him just for these monologues.

Somewhat surprisingly, Eric chose to open his set with a song ["Cover These Bones"] by another writer, the excellent Tim Grimm. After a spoken introduction, Eric launched into the song, which is about how the Native American's culture has been destroyed, leaving them as "ghosts, the walking haunted". Eric's voice is deep with something of a rasp and he accompanies himself perfectly with his inventive guitar playing.

The first few songs were taken from Eric's latest studio album "Studio 10". "Adios" provides a novel take on the conventional situation where the man hits the road and leaves the woman behind. In Eric's song, the reverse happens and the woman leaves without any regret whatsoever -"I love how that blue highway sings when I'm leavin'you".

Also from "Studio 10" was "Reno", a "true life song" about a friend who is a "highway hound from Kansas" who feeds his kids from the proceeds of gambling in Reno. Eric's performance was spellbinding and you could hear a pin drop.

Just when I thought that it couldn't get any better, it did, as Eric performed his classic "Dean Moriarty", at the request of Grateful Fred himself. The song is named after a character in Jack Kerouac's "On The Road", a book that Eric has read "every two years since I was a child". The actual song was preceded by an amazing spoken word piece which took in 1957, American cars, the Civil Rights Movement, Little Rock, Arkansas, President Eisenhower and then Jack Kerouac himself. The song that followed was equally awe-inspiring, as I told Eric after the show. He modestly replied along the lines that there are times that when it all comes together, it really works. Well Eric, tonight was one of those times.

Eric was a friend of the Late Great Townes Van Zandt [who once played this very venue] and told how Townes "stole a song from Lightnin' Hopkins and claimed he wrote it in his sleep". Eric got his own back by "stealing a song from Townes" -a blues in the style of Fred McDowell called "Brand New Companion", which he proceeded to perform brilliantly.

One of my favourite Eric Taylor songs is "Louis Armstrong's Broken Heart"which I was fortunate to hear him perform tonight, as he hasn't sung it for a long time. Eric described how the great jazz musician's last performance was on The Ed Sullivan Show, demeaningly dressed up in a Santa Claus suit and remarked that "sometimes music can suffer from a broken heart".

Although Eric was born in Atlanta, Georgia, he regards Texas as his home, particularly as "both my kids were born there". He expressed these sentiments in "Walking Back Home" ["I'm going to walk on back to Texas"].

Eric ended his set as he began it- with a cover version. This time it was Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released", which he sang with great feeling.

So ended a marvellous performance by a wonderful artist who clearly deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as those other great Texan troubadours that I mentioned at the beginning of this review.

Peter Cowley