Joanne Shaw Taylor

About Joanne Shaw Taylor, the U.K.’s BluePrint Magazine says, “Catch her live if you can; then you can say: I was there at the beginning!” When Taylor, of Birmingham in England, was just 16, Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics saw her live. Later he declared, "I have played with all sorts of blues musicians all over the world. I even made a film, Deep Blues, where I went to Mississippi and recorded some legendary players such as R.L Burnside and Jessie Mae Hemphill. Last year I heard something I thought I would never hear: a British White Girl playing blues guitar so deep and passionately it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end!" Her skills at the Telecaster were so perfect and Stewart was so impressed that he asked Taylor to join his supergroup, D.U.P., to tour Europe in 2002.

Now 23 years old, Taylor has continued to refine her skills as both a singer (think Joss Stone) and guitar player, and the proof of the pudding is in her dynamic debut CD, which combines the power of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix with the down-home blues of the Mississippi Delta. The 10 tracks on White Sugar (most of them written by Taylor) clearly show an artist in total command of her instruments—guitar and voice. The new CD was produced and mixed by acclaimed producer Jim Gaines (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Santana, Luther Allison, Jonny Lang) and recorded in Tennessee. The power trio – that’s the kind of band which suits Joanne Shaw Taylor, also at home in Birmingham, where she and her trio play the pubs, clubs and festivals. "I always wanted to try the power trio thing, like Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Paladins or Jimi Hendrix. I thought it would bring me on as a guitar player and a singer—which I think it has done,” says Taylor.