Chip Taylor
Album: Gasoline
Label: Floating World
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.trainwreckrecords.com/artists/chip_taylor.html

Following the demise of G.M & T, Taylor, still signed to Buddah, wasted little time in putting together this solo debut, his backing musicians including guitarist John Platania who would go on to work with such names as Judy Collins, Don McLean, Bonnie Raitt and Van Morrison.

It's a relaxed and confident set, although it does tend to spread its stylistic wings to embrace pop and blues as well as the dusty folk-country suggested by its cover, the title track a jaunty Nashville rocker with twangy guitar, wah wah and barroom piano. Taylor revisits one track from the trio days with a more hushed re-recording of Dirty Matthew (though it does seems to fate halfway through a line) while there's also one co-write with Al Gorgoni, piano backed closing track Swear To God, Your Honor, an amusing Kristofferson-sounding number in which a musician denies ever laying a finger on a female accuser or smoking weed, claiming to have been in the studio laying down licks for Bobby Bare or being too busy crying in his beer.

Taylor also took the chance to record his take on one his biggest hits, a version of Angel Of The Morning featuring strings and clarinet that's considerably more understated than the swelling covers by either Merrilee Rush or Billie Davis, though the weedy backround vocals may not have been a good idea. He also includes his own cover, a flute-coloured version of Carole King's Home Again that has a touch of Jim Webb about it (and features Hollies guitarist Tony Hicks) stands up well today. Of the remaining numbers, the bluesy Lady Lisa and prison song Londonderry Company haven't aged well, but the lazy, jazzy sax accompanied Lightning (Don't Stay Mad At Me), the strings-swathed Oh My Marie (which sounds like some musical ballad) and an easy-rolling finger-snapping You Didn't Get Here Last Night with its warm sax solo revealed someone with a good ear for a mature musical sophistication which his label (which let him go after its release) was foolish not to cultivate further.

Mike Davies