Joanne Shaw Taylor will perform at The Cotillion Ballroom on Sunday, Nov. 16.
It is her last scheduled tour date for 2025, bringing to a close a year that has seen her release one of her best albums to date -- the acclaimed “Black & Gold” -- and continue to build her audience.
The British-born guitarist and vocalist began her career while still a teen, eventually attracting the attention of Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) when she was 16. Soon after, she began recording a string of albums, each of which seemed to garner more attention than its predecessor.
She relocated to the U.S., first living in Detroit, before making her way to her current home in Nashville. With the support of her fanbase as well as fellow musicians such as Joe Bonamassa and producer Kevin Shirley, she has in recent years released a run of albums that have cemented her reputation as formidable performer and writer.
She recently spoke about her development as a musician, how spending two years off the road helped her regroup and refocus her energies, and her thoughts on her connection with her audience.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve loved your vocal performances on past albums, but to me this new record features some of your best singing to date. Did you have it mind that you were going to focus heavily on the vocals this time out?
I think you always go in with that, I hope. You want your performance the best that it can be and the songs the best ones you can write at that time. I think, to me, some of this was down to COVID. I’d been so nonstop since I was very young teenager. COVID was a bit of a blessing in disguise. I hate to say that because millions of people lost their lives, so please don’t think I was glad that it happened. But it did mean that the music industry shut down for two years, and I couldn’t tour. The one thing I did was [say], “OK, what haven’t I done before, or what haven’t I had time to do?” and one of them was vocal lessons. So, I got with a vocal teacher on Zoom and did weekly lessons, examining the bad techniques that I’d learned, figuring out what I needed to re-learn. That was hugely beneficial to have those tools in my toolbox. That’s been a bit of a game-changer for me.
I love that you lock in so naturally with the emotional truths of the songs.
I’m self-taught, so I think it goes back to that. The only way that I know how to make music work is to find something that makes me feel something, which is my job at the end of the day. If I can’t make the audience feel something [then that’s a problem]. The best way for me to do that is to feel it myself. If I’m faking it, they’re probably not going to react to it. That’s the only way that I know to go about performing to be honest with you.
You worked with producer Kevin Shirley on this album. He has this wide range of artists that he’s worked with, from Rush and Iron Maiden to John Hiatt and Joe Bonamassa.
Kevin produced an album for me about 10 years ago called “Wild” and it really worked, and I loved working with him, and he was meant to do the follow-up. But I changed labels at the time. I sold my own label to Sony, and the contracts took longer than they should have, and it just wouldn’t work. So, I always wanted to work with him again. After COVID, I moved to Joe [Bonamassa’s] label [Keeping the Blues Alive], and the time was right. We were hanging out in Nashville a lot, and we’ve done the last two or three albums together. I lose count to be honest. [Laughs.]
Some people like working with a producer over an extended period of time. They can always come up with new things to explore, and there’s a basis of a good relationship already established.
I think the most thing for me is that being a songwriter, I can write 10 songs and give them to Rick Rubin, and I’ll get Rick Rubin’s version of those songs. Same thing with Kevin. I’m going to get two different albums based on those songs. It’s very much a collaboration, working with a producer. Obviously, it’s a good thing to work with someone who has a ridiculous amount of experience and talent, but also someone who I’ve been friends with for 15 years. I know he wants the best for me personally and in my career. There’s a song on the album about grief. It’s about my mom. My mom’s been gone for a while now. There’s not that many people in my immediate family who actually remember meeting my mom, but Kevin’s one of those people. There’s a lot of history there as well and therefore a lot of trust and, well, fun. We have a lot of fun, too. I should probably say that as well. [Laughs.]
[Laughs.] Shhh. You don’t want anyone to know that there’s fun to be had making a record.
Oh God. No. Terrible. Awful. Do not recommend!
[Laughs.] When you started, did you always plan on writing or was that something that came later, maybe out of necessity?
To be honest, Joanne Shaw Taylor as an artist is a complete sort of product of the fact that I’ve always said I would have been a very different musician if I’d been born a man. Because I was obsessed with blues guitar, and that’s all I wanted to do. I wanted to be Stevie Ray Vaughan, like a lot of kids tapped into in the ’90s. But obviously the guitarists, most of those blues guys, sang and therefore could front the band and pick the set list. The guitar is a gender-neutral instrument, so I could copy bits of Stevie and bits of Albert Collins and Luther Allison, but I was never going to be able to sing like them. So I had to go find other influences, particularly when I was teaching myself to sing and that tended to be outside of blues: Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks, Dusty Springfield, even Bonnie Raitt; obviously some of her biggest hits are in the blues/pop mainstream. It led me down different influences. When it came to writing, I was never going to write “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.” I had to find artists who had stories to tell that were more in line with what I was going through. I would love to come back as a dude and see how different it would have been.
And writing your own material opens up a whole other universe. It’s a reflection of who you are.
Dave Stewart was really pivotal in that. I signed with him when I was 16, and obviously he knows a thing or two about writing songs. He had a small hit with “Sweet Dreams.”
[Laughs.]
He took me for a drive in this mini and told me to take three of my favorite albums. I was about 15, and I think I took Jony Lang’s “Lie To Me,” I took “Texas Flood” by Stevie and “Live Wire/Blues Power” [by Albert King] or something, and we drove around and listened to them. He said, “Those are really great albums.” He said, “The solo in ‘Hotel California’ consistently gets voted as everyone’s favorite solo. It’s a great solo but more importantly it’s in a good song. You can write the most important guitar solo in the world, but if it’s not in a good song, no one’s ever going to hear it.” That’s very true. He was pivotal in telling me that he thought I was more than just a guitar player, and that I had a voice and I should try music.
That’s amazing.
I was very fortunate.
That’s very cool that you had that experience and established musicians don’t have to do that kind of thing. Obviously, he spotted something.
Right? Multi-Grammy-winning, Ivor Novello-winning musicians don’t have to take 15-year-old kids from the Black Country and try and help out. We’re still very good friends to this day. I’ve been very fortunate with the mentors I’ve had. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I did in a past life, but I feel very fortunate.
With the body of work that you have at this point, there’s a lot to draw from when you go out for a tour. There’s the school of thought of, “Don’t play too much new stuff.” How do you figure out what approach to take?
Usually, I just make Kevin Shirley do it. [Laughs.] No, I do ask for Kevin’s help. That’s another one of his gifts; he’s really good at planning setlists. Honestly, sometimes you need someone from the outside looking in. It’s always fun, and I’m very lucky that I’m at the point where I’ve got 10 albums so we can pick the fan favorites that they’ve come to know over the years. You don’t want to add a whole new album, particularly if you’re touring before the album’s out. My rule of thumb is that four or five new songs off the new album is more than enough and then mixed in with, and I say this tongue-in-cheek, the greatest hits. [Laughs.]
I think there’s something that happens once fans have a record. Sometimes their perception of the best material differs from what the artist thinks. Are you ever surprised by fans saying, “I love this song,” and maybe it’s something you didn’t think would latch on in that way?
Sometimes. I actually talk about that on stage because we’ve got “Summertime” in the set list, which was Kevin’s pick for the “Wild” album. I remember him phoning and saying, “Hey, we’re going to do ‘Summertime.’” I’m a massive Ella Fitzgerald fan, and I know how loyal Janis Joplin’s fans are, and I just thought, “That’s a horrible idea, Kevin! I’m going to get crucified for trying to do that.” We did it, and it was so popular. I hope Kevin never listens to this, but he was right and I was wrong.
[Laughs.]
But that’s an example of me going, “No, you’ve got this wrong. I’m not going to do this well. No one’s going to want to hear me do that, Kevin.” It turned out brilliantly. For sure, it’d kind of magic. You can’t predict what someone’s going to relate to.
When did you have a sense that there was momentum to what you were doing?
I don’t (know) that I ever have, to be honest, because it’s been such a slow burn, which is probably more the nature of the genre I’m in, being more in a sort of blues-based, live genre. It’s just been baby steps. “Oh, we played to 40 people and now we’re playing to 80, now we’re playing to 200. Now we get to go to Europe, and we’ll play to 80 people there.” It’s been such a slow build over the course of 25 years.
I think probably in the last year I’ve looked around and gone, “Oh, I’ve got a nice, small -- nothing Kim Kardashian -- but a nice home to call my own in Nashville. I’ve got a sometimes lovely psychotic sausage dog. [Laughs.] I’ve got great, great people who work for me and love me and want me to do well, which is the main thing.” I’m happy in my work life. You look back and go, “Maybe I did make it.” That’s success to me, being happy.
But maybe there’s something to that, too, in terms of staying grounded. You can keep the lights on but there’s not this over-abundance.
I think that’s been beneficial for me as someone who suffers from terrible anxiety. I’ve got OCD. Again, I didn’t do this to be famous or anything like that. I just love playing guitar and writing and singing songs. I’ve had to adapt to there being people in front of me. [Laughs.] Because I was quite a shy kid. I think I would have struggled with any overnight, kind of massive thing.
I think shyness is very common among performers. Personally, I can speak to 500 people much more easily than two. How did you get beyond your sense of shyness?
To be honest, it’s only been in the last couple of years, and I think COVID kind of helped with that in that I was off the road for so long. I always loved what I did, but I started so young. My audience was predominately older and older men. If you’ve got a 13-, 14-year-old daughter, most of the men they know are schoolteachers or family members, people of authority. The one thing you do is tell 13-, 14-year-old girls, “If a man comes up to you, don’t talk to them. Stranger danger!” Suddenly, I was playing in front of guys that wanted to talk to me about guitars, and I was like, “Stranger danger!”
It took a long time to get used to it. Then, during COVID, I just missed it so much, and I realized how lucky I was. I dealt with some anxiety and depression issues I had going on. There are two ways of doing this: Either you’re a performer and you’re a natural performer, or you’re someone who likes being alone and making music and you have to learn to perform. I’m very much the latter. I think what helped me was that I realized everyone there in that audience is there because they want me to be entertaining, and they want me to be happy. As soon as you walk out with that feeling that you’re supported from the get-go, it really helped me. At the end of the day, it’s a room of really nice people that are kind enough to come and see me play, so it feels very supportive and positive.
