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Artist: Willy Tea Taylor
Album: Knuckleball Prime
Label: Blackwing Music
Release Date: 10/23/2015
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Willy Tea Taylor
Knuckleball Prime
Album Reviews | June 13th, 2016
Willy Tea Taylor hails from Oakdale,
California, a mythical landscape that lies
roughly halfway between the Sierra
Nevada and San Francisco. Also known as
“The Cowboy Capital of the World,” this
small cattle ranching community is abutted
by the Stanislaus River. This is Steinbeck
country whose geography and legacies,
both fabled and familial, work their way
into Willy’s repertoire. In fact, Taylor’s
tremendous album, Knuckleball Prime, is
put out by Blackwing Music, originally a
manufacturer of fine writing utensils used
by Steinbeck and others.
Mr.Taylor is a big baseball fan and used to
play quite a bit until a knee injury. As the
album title implies, he is hitting his stride.
“Most baseball players peak in their
twenties, but knuckleball pitchers tend to blossom in their late thirties and early
forties. I’m staring down my knuckleball prime.”
2. August 9th, 2016
Summerfest
August 9th, 2016
Newport Folk Festival
August 9th, 2016
SHEL
August 9th, 2016
The Silks
Youtube videos of Taylor performing live usually show him playing a 1920’s tenor
guitar with no additional accompaniment other than his plaintive singing. Knuckleball
Prime elevates these songs with lush production by Michael Witcher and was recorded
in Nashville, Tennessee with top notch musicians including Benmont Tench (Tom Petty
& the Heartbreakers), Greg Leisz (Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton), and Gabe Witcher
and Noam Pikelny of the Punch Brothers.
Each track hums with an intimacy that features Willy’s woeful vocals front and center.
The elegant instrumentation further draws the listener in revealing mournful, moving
lyrics. “You Found Me” embodies the sense of sadness prevalent throughout this
record. “I know what it’s like in a lonely home. Days are fast and nights are long.” The
title track, “Knuckleball Prime,” uses baseball as a metaphor to demonstrate Taylor’s
desire to make an impact on the world of music. “Give me a shot at the title, I won’t let
you down.” On “The Very Best” we hear of “hard times and heartaches.” The catchy
chorus “I might not be too good at most things I do, but I’m the very best at missing
you” speaks of a continual longing for love. Dreamy pedal steel licks create the rich
sonic texture on “Bull Riders & Songwriters” with lyrics that speak of the hardships of
the traveling musician’s life, “And this road led me to you and it’ll take me away. All I
can do is pray that’ll I’ll make it back one day.” Existential themes permeate “California”
as Taylor asks, “What’s it all worth? Our sweat in this dirt? There’s just enough water to
turn hope into hurt” and leaves us teetering between promise and despair. With lilting
banjo licks and emotive fiddle runs, “Chickamauga” powerfully imagines a dying Union
soldier’s final thoughts as an ethereal love letter to his gal back in Ohio. “We couldn’t
wait to be absorbed in all that glory. We were too young and we were too swift to die.”
Set during the American Civil war, but with timeless themes of the futility of fighting,
this is perhaps the most powerful track on the album. Listen close; it’ll leave you in
tears.
There’s a lot going on in each of these seemingly simple songs: baseball, love,
loneliness and California. Simply put, this is one of the most impactful albums of 2015.
Willy Tea Taylor deserves to be known as a master song-crafter who mines gems from
the Sierras of his soul and sings with tremendous heart. There’s gold up in them hills.
Dig it.
– Mike Cobb
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