Artist:     Theotis Taylor

Album:     Something Within Me

Label:     Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum

Release Date:     6.29.2018

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The nonprofit Music Maker Relief Foundation has done a masterful job in helping us rediscover long lost blues and gospel artists. Case in point is living legend gospel singer and pianist Theotis Taylor, now 91 but long retired from recording. These sessions come from 1979 and are presented with new studio accompaniment form Jimbo Mathus, Will Sexton, Liz Brasher and others, all Memphis area go-to musicians for Big Legal Mess driving force Bruce Watson.

Taylor’s voice, with its signature falsetto, sounds like a gentle precursor to Al Green, while his piano playing is so feather light that comparisons are hard to come by. Even when Taylor moves into a bluesy boogie-woogie mode it feels more like ballet than stomp. There’s a caring and a love for the music that makes Taylor rather unique, anything but your typical fire-and-brimstone gospel vocalist.

Tim Duffy, founder of Music Maker Relief Foundation, immediately went to Fitzgerald, Georgia to meet Taylor in person after hearing about him. The trip led to finding the long-lost master tape of these recordings. Watson had released two of Taylor’s tunes in a compilation project and latched right onto the opportunity to deliver a full album.

Praise for Taylor comes from many corners, notably Taj Mahal and Phil Cook, who just recently released his own fine informal gospel album People Are My Drug. Cook, formerly the musical director for the Blind Boys of Alabama said, “Brother Theotis Taylor’s music has become one of the most invigorating parts of my day. His energy, his unbridled spirt and signature touch on the piano combine to create an entirely singular sound resonates my body from head to toe.” Others have described Taylor’s sound as ethereal. In any case, it’s truly singular.

As you’d expect with many of these senior rediscovered artists, Taylor had to make his living apart from music. He spent most of his life as a custodian, turpentine harvester, farmworker, and, on a better note, the first black foreman of the City of Miami’s Parks and Recreation Department. He played music his entire life but only received wide recognition when performing at Carnegie Hall’s Folk Masters Series in the ’90s. Taylor still preaches but is unable to play due to lingering arm ailments from many years of hard labor. He will occasionally still sing if he can find the right person to accompany him. That undoubtedly proves difficult: proof is in listening to these ten tracks.

—Jim Hynes