Review: Joanne Shaw Taylor ‘Black & Gold’
By Hal Horowitz
It’s difficult to balance blues, rock, and pop without alienating the most dedicated audiences of those styles. But UK-born guitarist (she has lived in the US for a while) Joanne Shaw Taylor navigates that delicate equilibrium with remarkable dexterity.
She’s also remarkably prolific.
Taylor has recorded five studio albums and a live one since 2019, four with predominantly original material. She has generally stayed true to her blues roots, although some felt 2022s ‘Nobody’s Fool’ shifted a little too close to a slicker radio-ready side. But her songwriting regained its mojo on 2024s grittier ‘Heavy Soul’ and continues down that path for ‘Black & Gold’ (released June 6).
The heart thumping drums and percussion kicking off opening track “Hold of My Heart” lay down an early marker that Taylor is wading in deeper, swampier territory. And for the most part, she stays there on these eleven songs, all but two she penned or co-composed. Overall this is a heavier guitar-oriented set exemplified by two additional six-stringers (Audley Freed and Doug Lancio) joining Taylor.
The challenge is to create songs with catchy melodies while not abandoning the edgier approach which makes her concerts so exciting. Taylor rocks hard, urged on by veteran Anton Fig’s drums and congas along with Jimmy Wallace’s pounding piano, for “What Are You Going to Do Now.” She brings Southern guts to the music while spitting out lyrics that skewer an old romantic partner with “Yes, I can hear you/’Cause you never stop talking/But you’ve nothing new to say.” The chorus, where she repeats the song’s title is, like many of these songs, immediately memorable.
The sizzling riff of “Hell of a Good Time” is as propulsive as you’d expect from a tune with that name. Taylor promotes the fun of being the aggressor in a one-night-stand bellowing “Sinning and singing, I like living like a live-wire” as the band burns behind her, adding audio exclamation points to those words. And little hits harder than the greasy lone slide guitar that starts the bold “I Gotta Stop Letting You Let Me Down” before the band crashes in sounding like old Aerosmith grinding it out on a good night.
Taylor hasn’t entirely abandoned shooting for a pop hit as she admits in the glimmering sunshine sheen of “Summer Love.” The song goes down as easy as iced tea on a sweltering day and was specifically written for radio play, especially during the titular season.
A few of the disc’s highlights are more meditative. That includes the title track, an obscure song originally sung by Sam Sparrow in 2008 and played with a chillier, techno tilt. Taylor turns it into a bluesy mid-tempo rumination on mortality and lost love singing “’Cause if you’re not really here/then I don’t want to be either/I want to be next to you” with her husky, velvety voice steering the gloomier mood.
She co-writes the beautiful ballad “Grayer Shade of Blue,” a lovely, chiming treatise on missing an old flame who inexplicably abandoned her, sung with melancholy honesty. The sweeping chorus is gilded with guest fiddle, bringing some country twang, making it an album highlight and one of her finest performances.
This captivating mix of subtlety and rugged blues-based attitude shows how expertly Joanne Shaw Taylor crafts her sound. She paints ‘Black & Gold’ with a colorful palette, appealing to her established rootsier fans while broadening boundaries to entice a larger audience.
“Hell Of A Good Time”
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