Eddie Taylor

When you're talking about the patented <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Jimmy Reed</a> laconic shuffle sound, you're talking about Eddie Taylor just as much as <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a> himself. Taylor was the glue that kept <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a>'s lowdown grooves from falling into serious disrepair. His rock-steady rhythm guitar powered the great majority of <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a>'s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Vee-Jay%22">Vee-Jay</a> sides during the 1950s and early '60s, and he even found time to wax a few classic sides of his own for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Vee-Jay%22">Vee-Jay</a> during the mid-'50s.

Eddie Taylor was as versatile a blues guitarist as anyone could ever hope to encounter. His style was deeply rooted in Delta tradition, but he could snap off a modern funk-tinged groove just as convincingly as a straight shuffle. Taylor witnessed Delta immortals <a href="spotify:artist:0f8MDDzIc6M4uH1xH0o0gy">Robert Johnson</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:7aExFIr0IHWO5aFjMrGwKw">Charley Patton</a> as a lad, taking up the guitar himself in 1936 and teaching the basics of the instrument to his childhood pal <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a>. After a stop in Memphis, he hit Chicago in 1949, falling in with harpist <a href="spotify:artist:2mGsLcgVJSfpUTgrMuPxt3">Snooky Pryor</a>, guitarist <a href="spotify:artist:3AyVg8vtIU4HIcmEDil18Y">Floyd Jones</a>, and -- you guessed it -- his old homey <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a>.

From <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Jimmy Reed</a>'s second <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Vee-Jay%22">Vee-Jay</a> date in 1953 on, Eddie Taylor was right there to help <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a> through the rough spots. Taylor's own <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Vee-Jay%22">Vee-Jay</a> debut came in 1955 with the immortal "Bad Boy" (<a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a> returning the favor on harp). Taylor's second <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Vee-Jay%22">Vee-Jay</a> single coupled two more classics, "Ride 'Em on Down" and "Big Town Playboy," and his last two platters for the firm, "You'll Always Have a Home" and "I'm Gonna Love You," were similarly inspired. But Taylor's records didn't sell in the quantities that <a href="spotify:artist:41ZMMuFFLPTVPkUsSI5KlV">Reed</a>'s did, so he was largely relegated to the role of sideman (he recorded behind <a href="spotify:artist:1yNOfXGQNGjAynk77wv85x">John Lee Hooker</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:7sdvOvyRT6ZFBv5rura7xI">John Brim</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0q9kpdDkEA3H17gcRMjgVS">Elmore James</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2mGsLcgVJSfpUTgrMuPxt3">Snooky Pryor</a>, and many more during the '50s) until his 1972 set for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Advent%22">Advent</a>, I Feel So Bad, made it abundantly clear that this quiet, unassuming guitarist didn't have to play second fiddle to anyone. When he died in 1985, he left a void on the Chicago circuit that remains apparent even now. They just don't make 'em like Eddie Taylor anymore. ~ Bill Dahl, Rovi