Tag: Memphis musicians

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Music Music Blog

The Flow: Live-Streamed Music Events This Week, September 9-15

Jad Tariq and Benton Parker (Credit: Hernando's Hide-a-way)

Fall is falling into place all around us, and so the seasons roll on. Many die-hard music fans are sticking with social distancing out of prudence or necessity, and so we thank these artists and venues for giving the world options. The choices outlined below are rather stunning, really — proof positive that Memphis has great music coming out of its ears.

ALL TIMES CDT

Thursday, September 9
8 p.m.
Jad Tariq & Benton Parker — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

9 p.m.
Devil Train — B-Side Memphis
Facebook YouTube Twitch TV

Friday, September 10
7 p.m.
The Waymores — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

10 p.m.
Easy Honey and Day Kisser — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

11 p.m.
Jad Tariq & Benton Parker — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

Saturday, September 11
10 a.m.
Richard Wilson
Facebook

7 p.m.
Olivia Jean — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

8 p.m.
Music Trivia with Velvetina Taylor — at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

Sunday, September 12
3 p.m.
Imagene Azengraber — Chicken $#!+ Bingo at Hernando’s Hide-a-way
Website

9:30 p.m.
Richard & Anne — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Monday, September 13
10 p.m.
Evil Rain — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Tuesday, September 14
10 p.m.
Blue Dreamers — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

Wednesday, September 15
5:30 p.m.
Richard Wilson
Facebook

10 p.m.
Saffires — at B-Side Memphis
YouTube Twitch TV

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Music Music Blog

Jon Hassell, Memphis-Born Avant Garde Composer, Dies at 84

Jon Hassell on the cover of his 2006 album, Fascinoma (Water Lily Acoustics)

On Saturday, the world lost a native son of Memphis, a trumpet player and innovator who few know of here, and even fewer associate with the Bluff City. Jon Hassell was a tireless pioneer of new sound possibilities offered by the trumpet, especially when paired with electronic processing techniques, but also a creator of cross cultural hybrid musics that defied easy categorization by genre.

Best known for partnering with composer and producer Brian Eno, he was a venturesome collaborator whose playing appears on records by Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, Ry Cooder, David Sylvian, Ani DeFranco, Tears for Fears, and many others. Moreover, he was an innovator and solo artist in his own right who developed the concept of “Fourth World” music, based on blending global cultural traditions of sound with futuristic audio processing.

As detailed by Jared Boyd last year in The Daily Memphian, Hassell took to the horn at an early age, after inheriting an old cornet that his father had played at Georgia Tech University. After playing in the Messick High School band and taking private lessons from trombonist Jack Hale, Sr., Hassell went on to study at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

That was where he became more formally interested in the avant garde, especially the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen. He ultimately enrolled in Stockhausen’s Cologne Course for New Music in Germany, then returned to the U.S. and worked with minimalist composer Terry Riley, performing on the first recording of Riley’s seminal work In C in 1968. This led to his work with La Monte Young and the Indian singer Pandit Pran Nath.

And yet, in an in-depth interview with the RA Exchange podcast in 2016, Hassell retrospectively traced his interest in cross cultural sounds and electronic music to his earliest days in Memphis. As he put it:

It’s deep, there [in Memphis], for sure. There’s a question I always think about. I’m very blessed to have been born in Memphis rather than Idaho or someplace, or even Chicago. There’s a crossing. You talk about the crossing of cultures, and where does that come from? The era of segregation was still present, so I was introduced to it from that, looking across the racial divide point of view. Parked on my street might have been Johnny Cash’s beat up stretch limo, and at the same time, there was an African American guy, Henry Barnes, who was a kind of helper for my family, and very trusted, and would take my older brother and sister to school on a bike. And things like that.

I remember him taking me out to a — you know the word ‘joint’? Like a Mississippi-type place that’s made of RC Cola signs nailed together on a wooden frame? He took me out to this proto-juke joint in the outskirts of Memphis someplace, and it’s one of the big sound experiences I ever had … although I cannot … Like all I can do, speaking of, is it better to imagine or better to be? I cannot imagine what that, I can’t quite recreate it in my mind, other than to say it was probably the very earliest electronic instrument thing going on, like the very first, earliest amplifiers and guitars and things like that.

It was just so astounding to me. And as I speak about it I’m still like one of those cartoons where your head is going boiiing! Right? I’m still blown away by it. And you could spend a lifetime just trying to mine, and imagine what that was. And back to the crossing of cultures thing: I thought to myself later, after I left, you never really know your place, even if you grow up in a small town, you don’t really know what it is until you leave and you look back on it again.

Jon Hassell died at age 84 of natural causes, after suffering from ill health for over a year. His last studio album Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two) was released in 2020.

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Music Music Blog

Friends to Gather in Memory of Trumpet Player Nokie Taylor this Saturday

CREDIT: Shawn M. Carter

Beloved trumpet player William “Nokie” Taylor, who passed away in December, will be honored in a special event at Harbor Town tomorrow. Bennie Nelson West has posted that the event will serve to “remember & celebrate his life and the joy he brought to so many with his musical gifts, humor and good nature.”
Shawn M. Carter

Nokie Taylor receiving a Beale Street Note in 2012

In keeping with Taylor’s freewheeling spirit, the event will not be overly formal. “I’m planning it by the heart,” West tells the Memphis Flyer. “There’ll be some singing, some playing and some stories told. Nobody’s gonna preach. A lot of people will be performing, such as musicians who have played with him. Any FreeWorld musicians who want to come can play. It’ll be an open jam session.”

Though outdoors, the numbers will be limited out of safety concerns. “I attended an event down there for another deceased friend about a year ago,” says West, “and it was very pleasant. One of Nokie’s cousins will say something, and other people can tell their Nokie stories. Bring your love, bring your joy. Let’s celebrate and have fun.”

Read more about the life of Nokie Taylor, including thoughts from his son Ditto Taylor, here.

“Celebrating the Life of William ‘Nokie’ Taylor” will take place in the first parking lot/park across from Paulette’s Restaurant in Harbor Town, Saturday, March 6, 1-3 p.m.

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Music Music Features

Made in Memphis: MIME is a 2020 Success Story

CREDIT: Courtesy David Porter

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. championed civil rights, but he also had a proactive message for Black businesses: Build your own economic power. That’s why, in the last speech he gave before his assassination, he advised his audience “to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank,” a Black-owned institution. He also exhorted listeners to support Memphis’ Black-owned insurance companies. In this way, he suggested, “we begin the process of building a greater economic base.”

This message was echoed by Al Bell, the onetime chairman and owner of Stax Records, who marched with King. And the success of Stax and its investment in the local community put that message into practice. So it’s only fitting that that tradition is being carried forward by one of the label’s most active alums, David Porter. Co-writing so many hits with Isaac Hayes helped Porter learn the ropes of music publishing very early on, and nowadays he’s putting that knowledge to work as the CEO of Made in Memphis Entertainment (MIME). Porter co-founded MIME in 2015 with the business and legal veteran Tony Alexander (president and managing director), hoping to re-establish Memphis as a global music industry hub. And as the numbers from last year are being crunched, it’s clear that they’re well on their way.

Courtesy David Porter

David Porter

Key to this success is MIME’s diversification. It’s actually a family of companies that includes MIME Records, an independent record label; MIME Publishing, which handles Porter’s songwriting catalog, as well as young producers in hip-hop and R&B; Heavy Hitters Music, a film, TV, and ad sync company with an all-female creative team and Emmy-winning music catalog; Beatroot Music, the only Black-owned music distributor in the U.S. (not to mention Beatroot Africa, a strong presence on that continent); and 4U Recording, a state-of-the-art recording studio in Downtown Memphis.

Walking into MIME’s headquarters on Union Avenue, home to both its studio and offices, feels like you’ve time-warped into the future, or at least into Los Angeles. 4U is actually a complex of large and small studios, all interconnected and themed with ambient lighting and decor. Meanwhile, the offices bustle with MIME’s global business. The feeling of accomplishment in the air is palpable.

The numbers MIME reported on January 14th confirm that impression. Beatroot Music racked up over a million streams each across all major services for 14 of their artists, resulting in over 100 million total streams across its roster. Meanwhile, 4U Recording achieved its first gold-certified album with Moneybagg Yo’s Time Served, recorded at the studio. Two of the record’s singles, “All Dat” featuring Megan Thee Stallion and “Said Sum,” were both platinum-certified. Heavy Hitters Music also landed several major placements for its catalog of tracks, including placing “Said Sum” in multiple spots for the NFL and NBA.

As Porter observes, “In a challenging year for everyone, we maintained our mission of raising up not only artists but also our home city itself.” And that last point may be MIME’s most impressive achievement yet: its commitment to raising the profiles of local artists. That’s been part of MIME’s mission from the start, and one reason they’ve remained grounded in Memphis.

Even as MIME works with a global roster of artists, Alexander notes that Memphis brings a unique flavor to the table. “It’s the vernacular,” he says. “There’s an accent to a Memphis singer, or rapper. You can just tell by how they pronounce words that that’s Memphis. Also Memphis is known on the hip-hop side for the beats, the trap-type music. It’s very noticeable. It has a signature, just like the horns of the Memphis Sound before.”

But MIME’s support of the local economy goes beyond the artists, he says. “At MIME, we put our money where our mouth is, hiring people who may not get a chance elsewhere in the music industry and helping them gain skill and confidence. It is hard work, but it is also necessary to attain true diversity in the music industry. When you look at our successes in 2020, you can see that it is doable, worthwhile, and important.”

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Music Record Reviews

William Luke White’s Triumphant Return to Music

Whether you knew it or not, Luke White has probably been a fixture in some of your favorite Memphis bands. He’s played integral roles in Snowglobe, The Pirates, Spiral Stairs (Pavement’s Scott Kannberg), Colour Revolt, James and the Ultrasounds, Clay Otis, Jeffery James and the Haul, The Coach and Four, Sons of Mudboy, Harlan T. Bobo and Rob Junklas, among others.

Now, as William Luke White, he’s making his debut as a band leader and solo artist. But going solo doesn’t have to mean going it alone. He’s assembled a few of the city’s best rock and roll players to create an EP of rare energy and hope.

It’s especially moving for friends and colleagues of Luke, as he has tried to come to grips with some setbacks in physical health. Returning home from a West Coast tour supporting Spiral Stairs’ We Wanna Be Hyp-No-Tized in June 2019, Luke had a massive seizure in his apartment. He woke up four days later to find out that he had a cancerous brain tumor that needed to be removed. The successful surgery took place August 13th at LeBonheur.

In truth, that final surgery was the culmination a long process of recovery and healing. Over recent months, White has been seen at musical events (before quarantine), or on social media, at times in recording studios. As it turns out, he was putting the finishing touches on material that he had started working on before his seizure.

As he notes in a statement: “I decided to put out these songs I had recorded a while back that were basically finished and started talking to Tim Regan about releasing them on his Nine Mile Records label. I sent him the tunes I had and work got underway. I just want these songs to see the light of day and want to reclaim the date from my accident. Tim Regan and Tommy Kha, photography and artwork, have been with me since my seizure and it has been an amazing collaboration that is exactly what I needed.”

The result is a shot in the arm of these doldrum-plagued times. All notions of ill health or angst are swept away with the opening bass riff of “(Tell Me) Where Ya From From,” full of four-on-the-floor pounding drums, Jim Spake’s skronking baritone sax, and chiming background vocals courtesy Jana Misener and Krista Wroten. Eventually, some Steve Cropper-esque guitar fills show up as well. It’s a grand old time and a brilliant shot across the bow for White’s return.

The first single, “Glory Line,” spotlighted in visual artist Tommy Kha’s music video that was released today, is more contemplative, evoking shades of power pop, Americana, and even a touch of wistful Joni Mitchell, as he sings “I’m flying 20,000 miles an hour and without getting closer/My heart is radiating, I just hope you can feel it.”

William Luke White’s Triumphant Return to Music

Then it’s once more onto the dance floor with the perfect upbeat power pop of “Love In a Cage,” which actually makes such a prospect sound fun. If the Smiths cut an album at Stax, ca. 1986, this might have been the result.

And then White gets contemplative again with “My Worst,” but it’s a driving contemplation and catchy as hell. Throughout, White’s voice is in fine form, by measures both vulnerable and roaring, as needed, and sits perfectly in the shimmering guitar jangle and big beats, as background vocals sing the title words in what could be a Big Star sample.

But it’s not a sample, and all the more glorious for being so alive. As is William Luke White. And for that we are thankful.

William Luke White’s eponymous debut EP is available Friday, October 2, from Nine Mile Records.

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Music Music Features

Ruby Vroom: Mike Doughty Recreates His Seminal First Album

CREDIT: Ben Staley

This year marks the 25th anniversary of a breakthrough album, one that, by bringing sampling up front and into a live context, came to redefine what a typical indie band could do. Soul Coughing’s debut, Ruby Vroom, came at a time when hip-hop sampling had reached new levels of versatility, incorporating everything from jazz breaks to cinematic soundtracks. Yet the New York-based group was doing something entirely different: a mash-up of jazz-derived grooves, eclectic samples, and the juxtaposed meanings of lyricist/singer Mike Doughty. Though they evolved as the 1990s wore on, their trademark sound was signaled from their first release. And so it’s entirely appropriate to celebrate the debut’s quarter-century mark with a tour that recreates the album in its entirety. I spoke to Doughty, now happily ensconced in Memphis, about the tour and its upcoming stop at Bar DKDC on Sunday.

Ben Staley

Mike Doughty

Memphis Flyer: Have you revisited the Soul Coughing material much since you went solo in the early 2000s?

Mike Doughty: Sure, I’ve definitely been playing individual songs in different formats — with bands, with just a cello player, or solo, absolutely. But not a whole album. I don’t understand why bands didn’t start doing this years ago. It’s really fun to be inside this longer piece of music. You can really feel yourself in the lake of it, you know?

It must be different when you’re revisiting your own work.

Not really. You sort of forget about that part. I guess I’m very in the moment when I’m doing it.

I always thought your lyrics were semi-extemporaneous.

Not really. A lot of them were written based on the sound of the words. So I guess that’s why it sounds improvisatory. My bands in Memphis — MOTICOS and Spooky Party — who I play at DKDC with, those are entirely improvised bands. So I’m plenty into improvisation. On this tour, I have a system of hand signals that I use to cue people to start and stop and get louder and quieter. So there’s almost live remixing going on in the middle of the tunes. I’m encouraging the players to improvise, but I’m not doing vocal improvisations.

What kind of band do you have on this tour?

It’s a quintet: me, Scrap [Livingston] on upright bass, and then guitar, drums, and sampler. And it includes three members of Wheatus, who are also on the bill on the tour. They’re not at DKDC because there’s three backing singers in that band and an additional keyboard player [Memphian and Dixie Dicks member Brandon Ticer]. So Wheatus is a bit large for that little nook.

I expect you’ll bring new arrangements to the old songs?

Yeah. A lot of it is similar, but also, it’s just the nature of how I play music that things are sliced and diced.

The samples, I suppose, will offer a lot of room for experimentation.

Yeah, that’s different. Just by the nature of it, that’s more improvisatory. And I play sampler, as well as Matthew Milligan. Sometimes I’m singing, sometimes I’m playing the sampler and not singing. It’s all live-triggered. It’s not like we just click on a thing and a loop plays.

Will Sunday’s show carry extra meaning, bringing the tour to your adopted home?

Yeah. I’m really excited to do it in Memphis. I absolutely love living here. I had the dumb idea of moving to Nashville when I was leaving New York, and a friend said, ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to move to Memphis.’ And I had never even considered it. So during my exploratory Nashville trip, I drove over and literally got an apartment in Midtown, just having visited for a couple days. I was like, ‘I’m sold!’ There’s something that feels really mystical about Memphis to me. There’s something magical about it. I just immediately felt at home. It’s been four years for me, and I bought a house two years ago. I live in Cooper-Young, so I’ll just walk home after the show.

Mike Doughty brings his 25th Anniversary Tribute to Ruby Vroom to Bar DKDC on Sunday, March 31st, at 8 p.m. $10.

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Music Music Features

Graham Winchester and the Ammunition Return with New Record

Graham Winchester may be the purest embodiment of what it means to be a Memphis musician. Hardworking (he currently plays anywhere from three to eight gigs a week with upwards of nine different bands) and immensely talented, Winchester has carved out a niche for himself in several corners of the city’s often fragmented music scene through both relentless determination and his ability to charm almost anyone.

Though he’s primarily known as a drummer with well-known local acts like the Shieks, Devil Train, and Jack Oblivian, Winchester is a capable multi-instrumentalist, proficient on at least 10 different instruments, and also something of an emerging presence as a singer-songwriter.

The success of his 2014 solo debut Graham Winchester and the relatively rapid ascent of his namesake group Winchester & the Ammunition are testaments to his sharp skills as both a songwriter and bandleader. Now he and the band are gearing up for the release of a follow-up (though technically the first using the Ammunition moniker) called Until the End, which is being released in digital formats this week by the label American Grapefruit. To celebrate, Winchester & the Ammunition will play a show Friday at 9:30 p.m. at Young Avenue Deli, along with guests Jana Misener and Victor Sawyer.

Flyer: What was your process for recording Until the End?

Winchester: I started at High/Low Recording in the summer of 2015 for this album. Toby Vest and Pete Matthews engineered it, and we were all a production team together. 

The two of them helped this record breathe and find itself. They helped sculpt every song. They are also amazingly aware of space. If you invite them into the production world of the songs, they will undoubtedly help in the best way.

How do you compare Until the End to your debut?

It’s a little bit darker. The first album was more traditional, instrumentation-wise. Until the End uses more keyboards, especially synths. The lyrics ring in a little more personally. I don’t know which album is better, but I know the second one feels better to play live in rehearsals.

You can and do play many of the instruments on your albums yourself; where does the band fit in?

The guys contributed so much — not only in terms of the playing and singing, but also in helping shape sonic landscapes on specific songs.

Is it ever difficult for you to make time for so many projects?

It can be strenuous, but I try to balance time with different bands and keep it all to a strict calendar. I like to explore different musical worlds, so that’s the fulfilling reward of a tedious and busy schedule involving lots of different musicians.

Has starting a family affected your focus or availability for playing music?

I see making music as a natural act and one so important to my life. It’s been really inspiring. Erica [Winchester’s wife] and my son Everlee both love music, so we naturally have a lot of it in the house. I feel like I’ve slowed down my live shows maybe one gear lately to spend more time with family.

In recent years, you’ve become sort of famous for putting together lots of tribute and benefit shows around town.

I really enjoy putting together tribute and benefit shows and kind of just being a show booker of sorts. I breathed a huge sigh of relief that we successfully did a Talking Heads tribute when nobody had passed away. That’s the plan from now on — try and [pay tribute to] people who are alive. Of course, if and when a true legend passes away, an honorable tribute is always a worthy remembrance.

To what do you attribute your ability to move within so many different sects of the local music scene? I just enjoy playing lots of types of music. Too much of anything gets boring to me. A lot of my close musician friends agree, and that’s why we get along so well. I’m just happy musicians from a few different genres will put up with me!

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Opinion The Last Word

Renaissance and Resistance

Toni Morrison said that art must be beautiful and political. Nina Simone said that the responsibility of an artist is to reflect the times. James Baldwin said that artists exist to disturb the peace.

Artists set the tone for their cities’ cultural presence, and their work creates a lens for citizens to engage with tough issues facing their cities and their worlds. Memphis has never been a city devoid of amazing public art and talented artists, but I can’t be alone in feeling like we are beyond lucky to be witnessing Memphis’ arts renaissance — and the attendant art/artist resistance movements — right now.

We all know that Memphis is music. Music is protest and power, and our city’s musicians are producing some extraordinary sounds. My own musical predilections trend toward hip-hop, R&B, and soul, all genres that my ancestors used to reason and reckon with their realities. Marco Pavé’s Welcome to Grc Lnd promises to be a soul-stirring, historical look at resistance and existence in Memphis. IMAKEMADBEATS and his Unapologetic crew have been working for years to provide some nextwave musicology to the Memphis scene, and his work is without peer. Collectives like the PRIZM Ensemble not only craft moving works of musical art, but give us a glimpse of an inclusive musical revolution. The Soulsville Festival and Memphis Slim House serve as incubators of new, grassroots celebrations of Memphis’ eternal musical spirit and the communities that bear that spirit. Angel Street, the Memphis Music Initiative, and the Stax Music Academy ensure that Memphis’ children will carry that spirit of musical reckoning and resistance onward.

Art of resistance

Memphians’ artistic commitment to resistance goes beyond music. A beautifully hued photo of dancers from the Collage Dance Collective recently went viral and showcases Collage’s commitment to inclusivity in their troupe. This photo, alongside their RISE performance, show us what dance as an inclusive form of artistic resistance truly looks like.

The Baobab Filmhouse and Hattiloo Theatre show the complexity of existence for people of color throughout history and dare to imagine stories for them that do not rely solely on their pain.

The Indie Memphis Film Festival brings a diverse array of films and filmmakers to our city every year. Spaces and collectives that focus on multidisciplinary works of art — like the CLTV, Centro Cultural, the Memphis Black Arts Alliance, Young Arts Patrons, and story booth — provide space for Memphians to engage critically with art that challenges their perceptions of their place in the world and of art itself. The events that these collaboratives present, such as the Young Arts Patrons’ Young Collectors event, Centro Cultural’s Tamale Fest, and the CLTV’s Black in Amurica, spotlight collective cultural resistance to forces that would erase or oppress not just artistic production, but the rights and personhood of these community members. Each of these spaces spotlights talented local creators.

Gallery spaces like the Orange Mound Gallery, Memphis Slim House, Crosstown Arts, and the Memphis College of Art allow for public consumption of paradigm-challenging work from artists like Fidencio Fifield-Perez, Kong Wee Pang, Vanessa González, and Darlene Newman.

Andrea Morales’ photography gives us an unabashed glimpse at what Memphis-style grit actually looks like, and Ziggy Mack’s ephemeral shots provide a vision of Memphis’ best people and our alternative futures.

Joseph Boyd’s “It’s Beautiful Where You Are” and Vitus Shell’s “Protect Her” center black women as subjects of and inspiration for our collective struggle (94 percent of black women voted against our current political quagmire). Siphne Sylve’s art graces various areas of the city and proclaims a deep sense of love and pride for Memphis. Jamond Bullock’s murals provide much needed whimsy and color to everything they touch. Michael Roy’s engrossing work can be found from downtown high-rises to coffeehouse bathrooms and grants his unique complexity to a wide range of subjects.

The written and spoken word is important in determining what resistance looks, reads, and sounds like. Dr. Zandria Robinson’s “Listening for the Country,” featured in the Oxford American, invited readers to take a trip into an emotive space that helps citizens remember their essential humanity as they struggle with systems.

Public readings like the recent Writers Resist event, The Word, and Impossible Language reinforce that Memphis is full of revolutionary writers. Jamey Hatley and Sheree Renée Thomas are award-winning authors who dare us to address our pasts and consider our roots. The works of Memphis authors and poets like Courtney Miller Santo, Margaret Skinner, David Williams, Ashley Roach-Freiman, and Aaron Brame help us discover how deeply our shared experiences and histories connect us. And the work of those who balance writing with community building, writers like Richard Alley and Nat Akin, help us to see a way forward.

During times like these, when every day feels like an assault on our rational sensibilities, art helps us make sense of the swamp. It is only right that we, as Memphians, do our part to support these folks whose works help us right ourselves, mentally and emotionally. Artists, and the organizations that support them, need your help. Pay artists what they are worth. There is no reason why our city’s most talented and dedicated creatives and the organizations that support them should face so many financial roadblocks, given how much they contribute to our city’s well-being. If your resistance does not account for our artists and their art, then you should reconsider your resistance.

Troy L. Wiggins is a Memphian and writer whose work has appeared in Memphis Noir anthology, Make Memphis magazine and The Memphis Flyer.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Rest in Peace Pat Taylor

Memphis Musician Pat Taylor passed away Wednesday after a long battle with cancer.  A Memphis songwriter for more than five decades, Taylor played in the influential bands Village Sound, The Breaks and The Highsteppers, among others.  

The Breaks were Taylor’s most successful project, landing a deal with RCA records and a top forty hit with the song “She Wants You.” The Breaks were also named the “Best Local Rock Band” by the Commercial Appeal in 1982. Taylor went on to work at Ardent Studios as a recording engineer and frequently performed around town with his family. Read an old interview with Taylor in which he discusses The Breaks and the Memphis music scene at the time.

There will be a memorial service for Pat Taylor Friday afternoon at St. Johns United Methodist Church in Midtown at 3:00 p.m. Those wishing to donate to the Taylor family in their time of need can do so here.

Rest in Peace Pat Taylor (3)

Rest in Peace Pat Taylor

Rest in Peace Pat Taylor (2)