UNLIKE THEIR BROTHERS, JAMES AND LIVINGSTON, WHO RELY ON A SOFT, folk style, Alex Taylor and Kate Taylor have different roots.
“I got my musical background listening to John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt from when I was eleven-years-old,” Alex says. “I also listened to Ray Charles and that was rock ’n’ roll.”
Kate also tends to lean towards rock. “I wanted to do ‘Mohair Sam’ and a rock version of ‘I’m a Woman’ and ‘I’m a Hog for You Baby.’” Although she didn’t record any of those songs, Kate’s first album does include rockers like “Handbags and Gladrags,” “Ballad of a Well-Known Gun,” and “Look at Granny Run, Run.”
Kate, not blessed with the writing talent of her brothers, has to rely on other people’s songs.
“Other people say it for me,” she says. “If people write songs that I like to do, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t do them. I think it’s valid to write your own songs but if you find people who express what you feel then it’s the same thing.”
Alex has been writing songs for a while, but none of them appeared on his first album. “I was almost at a loss for the first album because I was green,” he says. “No experience at all. I’m very proud of the new LP that we’re starting now. I’m going to be writing more songs for it and it’s a much more ‘up’ album. This one’s really going to be rock ’n’ roll.”
Now that Alex has achieved some of his goals as a singer, he spends some of his spare time in the South and the rest at Martha’s Vineyard.
“Macon and Martha’s Vineyard are both sunny and quiet,” he says.” I really tend to like to be around that kind of place. I lived in Atlanta for a year and before that in Wilmington North Carolina. I like places where I can just lie out in back. Of course, on Martha’s Vineyard, James and Kate are both around, and occasionally Livingston and my brother Hugh. It’s nice to be together.
“I’ve always wanted to sing,” says Alex. “I do that better than anything else. Now I want to get rich so I can buy me some land and build a house where Sweet Baby James, my son, can play ball and fish and stuff. That’s what I call living.
Kate is managed by Peter Asher (remember Peter and Gordon?) and Jack Oliver. I listen to them and let them plan it (her career) out,” she says. “But I don’t think about it too much.
“They want me to be secure and stuff before I do bigger concerts, because first of all on a business level, there’s all those reviewers who could put me uptight and write things that could hurt my feelings.
“But I’m as ready as ever,” she says. “I can only do what I can do on stage and whatever it is you know it’s mainly honest. They want me to grow a little bit, you know. I have a tendency to ramble and stuff on stage. I do a lot of dancing too.”
All the singing Taylor’s have performed at the Cellar Door and should be appearing again in Washington. Kate’s performance was cut short because of a strep throat, but chances are she’ll be back at the Georgetown nitery before too long.