About Me
(THIS IS A FAN TRIBUTE PAGE!) To call Chip Taylor's life an incredible story is almost an understatement. As a songwriter, Taylor has hit the charts in five decades now. He wrote "Wild Thing," one of the primary songs of the rock'n'roll canon since it was a #1 hit for The Troggs in 1966. His song "Angel of the Morning" has been a hit for Merilee Rush, Juice Newton and most recently Shaggy, whose chart-topping version earned Taylor the status of having the longest span of #1 hits in music history. As No Depression magazine noted, "Maybe somebody else has had cuts by JIMI HENDRIX, FRANK SINATRA, LINDA RONSTADT, WILLIE NELSON, but it's got to be a pretty elite club." Taylor has also been a SPECTACULARLY SUCCESSFUL PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER, as well as a recording artist and producer of such acts as the young JAMES TAYLOR (no relation) and pop superstar NEIL DIAMOND. He was an integral part of the bustling New York pop songwriting scene in its 1960s Brill Building heyday, one of the pioneers of the progressive country style that was the grandfather of today's alternative country movement, and is today a respected elder statesman of the singer-songwriter scene. But for Taylor, what's next has always been more important than the past. Excellence in all endeavors has been a hallmark of Taylor's pursuits since his youth. Born JAMES WESLEY VOIGHT, he grew up in Yonkers, NY, the third son of a professional golfer father and schoolteacher mother who encouraged their offspring to follow their dreams. To wit, one brother is acclaimed actor JON VOIGHT, while his other sibling, DR. BARRY VOIGHT of Penn State University, is a noted geologist who devised the formula to predict the elusive occurrences of volcanic eruptions. During his youth, Taylor became absorbed with music, especially the country songs he heard on the radio from the clear channel AM station WWVA in Wheeling, WV. As a teen he was a top-ranked competitive golfer and led a local country band, eventually deciding to pursue music full time when a band he was in landed a deal with King Records, becoming the only white act on the influential black music label. But once he started having success landing his songs with publishers, Taylor followed his muse to score hits with songs for The HOLLIES, BARBARA LEWIS,The POZO SECO SINGERS (featuring DON WILLIAMS),The AMERICAN BREED, BILLY VERA & JUDY CLAY and The CLIQUE, along with writing the standards "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning." JIMI HENDRIX later adopted "Wild Thing" as one of the showpiece numbers of his live show, and JANIS JOPLIN made Taylor's song "Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)" one of her signature songs. In the 1970s, Taylor recorded a series of albums for Buddha, Warner Bros., Columbia and Capitol Records that marked him as a progressive country innovator. Though he earned critical acclaim and enjoyed pockets of airplay, the New York-based Taylor found himself continually out of sync with the insular Nashville country music system. Nonetheless, his songs found favor in Music City with artists like JOHNNY CASH, WILLIE NELSON, WAYLON JENNINGS, ANNE MURRAY, EMMYLOU HARRIS, JIM ED BROWN and BOBBY BARE. Since his teen years, Taylor had also shown a knack for the mathematical intricacies of gambling. Throughout the 1960s and '70s, he pursued gambling as avidly and successfully as he did his songwriting. In the early 1980s, Taylor put aside his musical endeavors to pursue gambling full time. His prowess at blackjack eventually led to him being banned from all the major casinos in Atlantic City and several others in Las Vegas and Europe. Concentrating full time on horse racing, Taylor and his partner Ernie Dahlman were such accomplished thoroughbred handicappers that the Long Island Off Track Betting parlor they frequented gave the team their own room with a private teller and televised race replay system. Then, in 1995, Taylor's mother became seriously ill. "Instead of going to the racetrack one week, I just spent the time with Mom and played her songs," explains Taylor. "She was always my biggest fan. It was such a wonderful audience for me. She just was so into my songs and my spirit." The experience so rekindled Taylor's passion for music that he decided to give up gambling and return to recording and performing. With the albums Hit Man (1996), The Living Room Tapes (1997), Seven Days in May (1999), The London Sessions Bootleg+ (2000) and Black And Blue America (2001), Taylor was once again reaping critical praise. He also found a burgeoning audience in Europe, where his 1970s albums had made him something of a cult hero. And noted singers and writers like John Prine, Guy Clark and Lucinda Williams gave Taylor's return to music their blessing by singing with him on his albums. As writer Holly George-Warren said in Rolling Stone, "Las Vegas' loss is our gain." That's because Taylor is one of America's finest songwriters as well as a masterful singer and performer. "If names like Willie Nelson, GuyClark, Kris Kristofferson and Townes Van Zandt mean anything to you, you should make a point of discovering Chip Taylor," urges critic Anthony DeCurtis in CD Now. "Whether you know it or not, he's earned his way into that exalted company."
