With the Memphis Zoo now backpedaling on their ostensible commitment to avoid using the Overton Park Greensward as a parking lot, everything old is new again, and that includes a renewed appreciation of Overton Park by we, the people. How timely, then, to revisit some music inspired by that great green space. In this case, it’s two EPs by Memphis native Paul “Snowflake” Taylor, aka New Memphis Colorways, which were paired together earlier this year as a single LP in glorious vinyl.
Memphis Flyer readers already know Old Forest Loop, a groovy, rollicking EP of instrumentals, which Andria Lisle profiled on its release in 2018. All riffs, beats, and changing gears, Taylor conceived of it as “homemade and light-hearted, and I see it as kind of a start-over for me. This is music I deliberately made for people to take summertime drives to — they can grill to it or swim to it.”
And yet, it somehow matches the elation Memphians feel at the return of cool weather as well. It’s an active record, an up record, and fits that impulse to get out of the house for some hiking, biking, or more. Having taken it on a test run while cooking out in the backyard, I can attest to the truth of Taylor’s claim that it pairs well with grilling.
If that’s one side of fall, the beauty of these twin EPs being brought together is that the older work, 2015’s The Old Forest Trail, perfectly matches autumn’s air of melancholy and reflection. A largely acoustic outing, it is, in Taylor’s words, “An homage to a sacred natural space in the middle of Memphis TN — the Old Forest Arboretum located in Overton Park.” The somewhat more wistful sound also matches what Taylor was going through in the year of its release, and he notes: “Also lovingly dedicated to the memory of my father, Pat Taylor 1949-2015.”
As he told Lisle, “When my dad [Memphis musician Pat Taylor, a veteran of numerous bands including the Breaks and the Village Sound] was sick, I was playing acoustic guitar by his bedside, and when he passed in early 2015, I was spending a lot of time in the Old Forest in Overton Park.” The peace of wild things, as poet Wendell Berry put it, is thus very much present in this set of songs, which sometimes echo Nick Drake’s application of a folk picking style to unexpected chords.
Another aspect of this album that is uniquely Memphis is the label: It’s the first release in many years by the great Peabody Records, founded by the late Sid Selvidge, now kept afloat by his son Steve. As Taylor points out in the notes, Old Forest Loop/The Old Forest Trail is “a joint venture between Peabody Records and The Owl Jackson Jr. Record Company.”
Ultimately, a refreshingly holistic view of Overton Park comes across with this album: a place of rambunctious activity and a place of solace. Delve into both with this multifaceted work by one of this city’s greatest players.
