Joanne Shaw Taylor is a British blues rock guitarist and singer who was discovered by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics at the age of 16. The British music publication Blues Matters! called Taylor "the new face of the blues".
Biography
Taylor was born in Wednesbury, West Midlands, England, and grew up in Solihull, and was inspired in her early teens to play the blues after hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Collins and Jimi Hendrix. Dave Stewart heard Taylor play, and in 2002 invited her to join his supergroup, D.U.P., on tour in Europe. In May 2009, Taylor released her debut album, White Sugar, on Ruf Records. Taylor's second release was 2010's Diamonds in the Dirt, also on Ruf Records. Both her albums peaked at number eight in the US BillboardTop Blues Albumschart. In 2010, she won Best Female Vocalist at the British Blues Awards. She won the same award at the 2011 British Blues Awards, plus the Songwriter of the Year award for "Same As It Never Was" from Diamonds in the Dirt. On 4 June 2012, Taylor played lead guitar in Annie Lennox's band at the Diamond Jubilee Concert in London. Taylor played an extended solo during the performance in front of Buckingham Palace, attended by approximately 12,000 people. Just before her solo spot, Taylor's Fuzz Face pedal malfunctioned, leaving a much cleaner guitar sound than usual. This apparent misfortune was ameliorated, however, when she was informed that Stevie Wonder had loved her "clean, bluesy, understated tone". Taylor's fourth studio album, The Dirty Truth, was recorded in Memphis, Tennessee with producer Jim Gaines, and was released on 22 September 2014. Wild, Taylor's fifth studio album was released on 30 September 2016. It was recorded in Nashville's Grand Victor Studios with Kevin Shirley working as producer. The album became her first top 20 entry in the UK Albums Chart. In 2018, it was announced that Taylor had signed her first major label contract with Sony Music on their imprint, Silvertone Records. She supported Foreigner at Birmingham's Symphony Hall on 15 May 2018 and at the Royal Albert Hall on 16 May. Following her own headline tour in 2017, Taylor completed a four week tour around the United States, and returned to the UK in late 2018 to play intimate venues around the country. Taylor's sixth album Reckless Heart was released on 15 March 2019 in the UK and Europe, and on 17 May in US.
