F
or years Joanne Shaw Taylor was the ‘new face of the
blues’. A girl from the Black Country who wanted to
play guitar, she moved from bluesy jams with her dad
and brother to being scooped up by Eurythmics star
Dave Stewart when she was 16, and left school to
pursue music full-time. And she hasn’t looked back.
As a teenager she was already an impressive guitarist, and with
a singing voice informed by her mother’s northern soul and
Motown records, but she didn’t write her own songs. Prospective
collaborators tried to turn her into the Avril Lavigne of blues,
seemingly rather blind to the idea that
a young woman could be a serious,
successful player and performer without
subscribing to a preconceived idea of
pop-star femininity. But in a straight-
ahead way, that’s what she’s done.
“Labels wanted to make me what they
wanted to make me,” she sighs.
“Fortunately I was savvy enough that
I realised I would probably regret it. I’d
rather earn a little off something I loved to do than earn a lot off
something I didn’t. It’s been a while since anyone’s mentioned
Avril Lavigne and me in the same sentence.”
Now 33, with countless shows worldwide and six studio
albums (the most recent of which, 2016’s Wild, hit the UK Top 20)
under her belt, she’s the closest thing the UK has to a Joe
Bonamassa-type figure. Especially given the arrival of new album
Reckless Heart, her first release for her new label Sony.
Is she glad it’s happened this way round: first a steady series of
indie records, and now, several albums in, her major-label debut?“It had been building slowly, and when Sony approached me
and made an offer it seemed like the next obvious step. I wasn’t
really aiming for it, either, so it was quite a welcome surprise,” she
muses, seated on a sofa at Sony’s Kensington HQ and fighting
back a cold. “I did think about what it would have been like if I’d
had this at eighteen or nineteen. I think there would certainly have
been a bit more pressure. But now I understand the industry a bit
more, I’m a bit more used to doing interviews...” She pauses and
laughs nervously. “Well, slightly. I’m still not great at them.”W
ith her slightly mid-Atlantic
accent (for the past decade
she’s split her time between
Detroit and Birmingham) and long
blonde waterfall of hair thrown over
leather-jacketed shoulders – not to
mention the fact that she’s a superb
guitar player – Taylor has her share of
rock-star glamour. Her producer on
Reckless Heart, Detroit friend/mentor Al
Sutton, is known for his work with Kid Rock and, most recently,
Taylor’s other local pals Greta Van Fleet. Aerosmith/Led Zeppelin/
Joe Bonamassa man Kevin Shirley produced her previous album,
Wild. Bonamassa has been her best friend and mentor “for about
ten years now”, and her other music “bros” include Marcus King,
Jeff Beck guitarist Carmen Vandenberg and the guys in King King.
In the past couple of years, tours with Glenn Hughes and
Foreigner have further broadened her rock circle in addition to her
blues kudos. And in Detroit, motherland of the proto-punk likes
of the Stooges and MC5, she’s found a home from home.She’s gone from teen prodigy to industry veteran. Now,
blues-rock leading light Joanne Shaw Taylor is gearing up
for the release of her major-label debut.Words: Polly GlassOLL
Y^ C
UR
TIS
“I’d rather earn a little
off something I loved to
do than earn a lot off
something I didn’t.”
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