The Blues Album

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Joanne Shaw Taylor: Blues From The Heart Live". All About Jazz. 11 June 2022 . Retrieved 29 June 2022. Otis Rush’s `Keep On Lovin’ Me’ brings Shaw Taylors’ smoky vocal to the fore and then we are treated to a full Chicago style electric solo spot mid song which is fearsome. The tempo slows with `If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody’ but provides a deeply soulful and powerful vocal delivery here. We often discuss Taylor in the context of her guitar playing, and the tones she wrings out of Junior, her number one guitar, a modded ’66 Esquire. Yet on this record, her voice is everything. “It is really hard to sell a good blues song unless you are singing it well,” she says. “Because they are such heartfelt lyrics. This is what I meant when saying my understanding of blues is a lot broader than other people’s.”

We were both adamant that I got one tone and play it across the whole album, because that’s a bit more traditional. In terms of guitars, I tried to play a couple, and he finally agreed with me that I just don’t play any guitar as well as I play my main guitar, Junior, and secondly, I didn’t realise how difficult his setup is on his guitars. His action’s far higher. His strings are heavier. He plays in standard. I tune down. All you are adding is reverb and delay, and that’s how you do a blues album. You want that continuity, that it’s one guitar, one band, and that is what it is.”Yeah, his guitar playing to me is like a singer, particularly in his phrasing. The thing is, for me, one is as equally important as the other. Look at the giants in this genre, like the three Kings, Howling Wolf or Muddy Waters, or Luther Allison; they were brilliant singers. Ignoring the guitar playing, they could have been professional singers, so I think people don’t realise how equally important it is. It is two voices that sort of come together to sell you a song.” Joanne’s covers album pays tribute to artists and bands that are not obvious choices including Little Village, Little Milton, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, James Ray, but, at the same time, she covers seminal blues icons including Albert King, Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green and Magic Sam. Some of the songs covered are B-sides of singles.

Joanne Shaw Taylor | Discography". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 4 January 2015 . Retrieved 10 November 2013. The record feels a little like a live blues set. Maybe it is because you used the one guitar across the whole record, or with the choice of covers and the performances. On the new album, I mostly played my own guitar, my 1966 Esquire ‘Junior’,” says Joanne. “I tried to use a few of Joes Tele’s, but they’re set up for much bigger hands than mine. I did use Joe’s vintage amps - I believe one of his 60’s Vibroverbs mixed with a fumble overdrive for pretty much all of it. We didn’t use any pedals.” a b "British Blues Awards 2011". Britishbluesawards.com. Archived from the original on 19 October 2011 . Retrieved 15 October 2011.Joanne Shaw Taylor releases new single If That Ain't A Reason produced by Joe Bonamassa — Decibel Report" (Press release). 9 July 2021 . Retrieved 23 July 2021– via Decibel Report. a b Grahame Rhodes. " White Sugar review". Bluesinthenorthwest.com. Archived from the original on 23 January 2012 . Retrieved 1 October 2011.

release of her seventh studio full-length record The Blues Album on Friday September 17, 2021. Today she also shares a new single, “Let Me Down Easy” along with a companion music video I doubt I will ever play rhythm guitar or write my own songs again because was so much more relaxing to make Aretha Franklin’s ultra-soulful “If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody” is a brave song choice but Taylor’s voice is more than up to the challenge. Her love for this song comes out in her vocal and guitar performances here and shows that she can handle a slow-burner like this just as well as the stomping uptempo tunes. Her passion and pain will give listeners chills of the best kind and makes this one of this new record’s best cuts. The Little Richard ballad [I Don't Know What You've Got] was a big one, because I always loved that song; I like the subject matter. I think we have all been in that position where we have fallen in love with someone and think, ‘Why am I in love with this person? They are an arsehole.’ Y’know!? [Laughs] And I think he approaches that subject very well. The merry shuffle of The Fabulous Thunderbirds `Two Time My Lovin’ with its bouncing bass line and sweet choral parts zooms through effortlessly before Shaw Taylor hits her peak vocally on `I Don’t Know What You’ve Got’, and is joined on the Choruses by Mike Farris. The guitar and horn parts allow room for her voice to truly sparkle here without being drowned out.Joanne: I think it’s collaboration. It’s not so much giving in as just handing yourself over to them and going, “This is how I sing, this is how I play guitar. How do you want this to sound?” I said to Joe going in, “I’m really flexible and I will give you that on the basis that if I put my foot down and say, ‘I don’t like something’ you know I mean it. But I’ll only pull that card maybe once.” Joanne: Yeah. In about two weeks. I’m really looking forward to it. I know Devon and all the boys, but I also know a lot of the guest artists. I’m going to have to pace myself. I’m going to be very excited to see everybody, like Christmas.