Quality Americana

It opens with a choir and slides into a catchy theme song for the countless artists that ever scratched together a monthly rent payment. 

The fiddle and dobro really come together like an old Randy Travis hit. It’s a wonderful idea for a song that keeps repeating in your mind long after the first listen.

US 23

Brit Taylor was raised in eastern Kentucky near Hazard where she first took up singing at the Mountain Arts Center.

“It’s so small around there you name about five counties when you’re telling people where you’re from,” Taylor said with a laugh. “I didn’t grow up in a musical family so having the Mountain Arts Center, and voice lessons, and music lessons available and getting to perform on a stage every weekend was just incredible. I treated it like a job. It was very, very serious to me, I loved it so much.”

It’s hard to imagine Taylor not having other artists in the home after hearing how strong her voice and compositions are presented on Land of the Forgotten.

“One of my Mom’s friends said ‘have you heard your daughter? She can sing. You should get her involved in the MAC.’ And my Mom took me and put me in lessons and helped me make an audition tape in our bathroom with a karaoke machine to audition for a US 23 Showcase,” Taylor said. 

Taylor described it like a variety show akin to the Grand Ole Opry. 

“The US 23 is the country music highway that runs through Kentucky. It’s where Dwight Yoakam, Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gale, Ricky Skaggs, Tyler Childers, Chris Stapleton… just like a crazy amount of crazy talented people are from… that very short stretch of highway. I don’t think enough people know about it.”

Early on Taylor was in love with 80’s country. She followed after The Judds especially.

“While all my friends were listening to NSYNC and Britney Spears I was listening to some pretty country stuff,” Taylor said. She was only seven years old when she joined the MAC. “The band was just full of kids. We’d just learn these songs at rehearsal and put the show together and play every weekend. It was kind of crazy to go from like this really nice theater to singing in like smoky bars when I got to Nashville.”

The Big City

Taylor relocated to Nashville at 17 years old to start college at Middle Tennessee State University.

“Now it’s probably an hour from town with the crazy amount of traffic that’s around here,” Taylor said. “When I got here, I feel like it was like twenty five minutes from Nashville, so it’s felt very close to me.” 

Taylor was soon introduced to Cowboy Jack Clement and started out in the writers rooms.

“I would go to school like two times a week all day and I would write songs in town Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” Taylor said.

Taylor worked on a degree in music business and quickly took up an internship amongst other artists.

“Those publishers had to listen to my songs whether they wanted to or not,” Taylor joked. “They ended  up signing me like three years later after my internship, and now I’m actually working as an A&R at Ridgetone Records. It’s in support of Appalachian talent, so I’m getting to be somebody for somebody that I wish I would have had, you know? It’s really fun.”

Land of the Forgotten

Land of the Forgotten is Taylor’s third solo album, after last working with Sturgill Simpson. Her husband Adam Chaffins took the producing role on the new independent release. 

“He’s played bass with everybody from Town Mountain to Jake Owen to War and the Treaty,” Taylor said. “I feel like I’ve finally gotten my sound. Like I came here searching for something and I captured my journey on my way to here.” 

They recorded the album at Cowboy Jack Clement’s home studio.

“That’s the first studio I ever stepped foot into when in town seventeen years ago,” Taylor said, “so that was really special.” 

She described the supporting artists as a “dream team of musicians that we very carefully and thoughtfully put together.”

Crazy Leaf

“Crazy Leaf” has that vibe that gets your knees moving, like so many on Land of the Forgotten.

“I wrote that with my husband,” Taylor said. The characters in the song were inspired by some of the memorable family personalities they’ve grown up around. “I tell everybody I’m the crazy leaf in my family.”

It has a funky beat and groove and wonderful chorus.

“When you kind of find your people it’s really special,” Taylor said about the nature of co-writing that fills the album. “Even John Prine co-wrote songs with Pat McLaughlin, one of his best friends.”

Support the Artist

Taylor balances performing, writing and working in the business all while raising her family and self promoting her latest release. 

“You’ve got to make time expand,” Taylor said. “Somehow I am managing that, and just trying not to think about it too much.”

More information about Brit Taylor can be found here.

Photo provided by Daniel Ray Hilsinger.

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