Revisiting Lewis Taylor’s self-titled 1996 release
As Lewis Taylor’s rather unimpressive CV seemed only to include a stint with prog/blues outfit The Edgar Broughton Band, his eponymous album arrived unheralded and probably unwanted. Given that after one listen, the album had not only evoked the spirit of Marvin Gaye’s early 1970s masterpiece ‘What’s Going On’, but had infused it with sparks of psychedelia which may have actually topped it, came as something of a surprise to many.
The single-word titles of all the self-composed songs may have alluded to minimalism, but the aural reality is much different. These are complex arrangements, glorious, slow-burning transcendent music for listening to rather than dancing—a different kind of soul, a deeper experience, an area breached by Gaye and developed with respect and no little imagination by Taylor.
Despite critical acclaim and some A-list endorsement – David Bowie made his love of the album well known – Lewis Taylor didn’t catch with the public, and, despite a catalogue of very listenable releases over the next decade, including his “lost album” which saw him blowing kisses at the West Coast scene of the 1970s, Taylor quit the music scene in 2006.
A great talent poorly received.
