Chip Taylor
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If a musician's older brother was actor Jon Voight, that might be the most newsworthy point to make about them. And if their oldest brother was a world- famous geologist and vulcanologist, that could be the most interesting thing. But Chip Taylor (a.k.a. James Wesley Voight) can do better than that because he is the Voight brother you didn't know you knew. Taylor wrote what Vin Scelsa called the "yin and yang of American pop classics," including "Wild Thing" (Jimi Hendrix), "Angel of the Morning" (Merilee Rush, Juice Newton, Chrissie Hynde), "Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)" (Janis Joplin), "I Can't Let Go" (The Hollies, Linda Ronstadt), "Country Girl, City Man," (Ike and Tina Turner), "Anyway That You Want Me" (more chart versions than any other Taylor song), "Poppa Come Quick" (Bonnie Raitt), and "Son of a Rotten Gambler" (Anne Murray, Emmylou Harris). His compositions sound like the soundtrack of American popular culture for decade after decade.
Chip's talents aren't restricted to just the song-writing end of the music business. With producing partner Al Gorgoni, he discovered and produced James Taylor and Evie Sands. He also released six solo albums, including Chip Taylor's Last Chance, which Rolling Stone acclaimed as one of the best country albums of 1973. He also picked up a second profession that also gained him considerable notoriety: Taylor was a professional gambler, and one of the foremost thoroughbred horse race handicappers on the East Coast. He finished third in the World Black Jack Championship, and was banned from every casino in Atlantic City because of his card counting skills. Taylor's expertise was well documented by the IRS.
Fortunately for the audience, Chip Taylor has rejoined the music community. In 1993 he agreed to go on a national songwriters tour with Midge Ure, Darden Smith, Rosie Flores and Don Henry, which jumpstarted his interest in musical creation. "Chip left the music business for a while as a songwriter, and came back as an Artist. These songs are poetry, absolutely beautiful," says Dennis Wholey, host of the PBS program America. Taylor released his retrospective collection, Hit Man, on Gadfly Records, and in 1997 released The Living Room Tapes. Tom Russell describes this album as a "quiet, understated, heartfelt masterpiece...the steady hand of a song craftsman." "What is truly staggering about Chip Taylor's reemergence in the 90's is not simply that the creator of 'Wild Thing' and 'Angel of the Morning' is performing and writing again, it's that he has quite simply never been better on stage or on disc," adds a Rolling Stone contributing editor.
