#remembering-dylan-taylor

#remembering-dylan-taylor

When the pandemic hit in 2020, I was forced to sit with my grief. My days had no shape, and I found solace in daily walks around my neighborhood.

When you get it, you'll see a SongDNA card 'on supported tracks'. If you tap this, you can explore the writers, producers, and collaborators behind a song, see samples and interpolations that shaped its sound, and browse the covers it inspired.

The Little Prince by way of the pen of Antoine de Saint Exupéry said 'Draw me a sheep' and I said to the the Little Prince 'Dream me a dream' overheard by Nick HOO (Big Potato Nick) who said 'Record me a song' so I recorded a song and then one or two more and just like that whip crack away and snap dragon fingers we had an album and just like that pump up the jambalaya and kick the chandelier Nick's got the tracks mixed and mastered and pressed into 12" discs.

Maybe we ran into an old acquaintance at the supermarket and said "Let's catch up sometime" or told our friends we would "check out" the boring-sounding show they spent the past five minutes recommending? That's what country-music superstar Jelly Roll appeared to do after the Grammys last week when, in response to a question about the state of the country, he said he had "a lot to say"

That whole year I just felt awful and like I was dying. I didn't feel right, and mentally I was off, like there really was something wrong the whole time. So I think the reason some of these songs feel the way they do is because I felt that way, even though I didn't know something was wrong yet.

I last saw Bob when we went to the Sphere in Las Vegas to watch Dead and Co. He was very welcoming and during the interval in the show he invited us into his trailer, and it was a special moment to meet his family and friends. Bob showed me the recording set up that he had in the back of the bus so even though he was on tour he could make and record music;

James Taylor has announced a 29-date 2026 tour with his All-Star band. Taylor's trek will take place this summer and fall, kicking off on April 26th in Highland, California, at the Yaamava Theater and concluding on September 26th in Hollywood, Florida, at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Along the way, he'll play shows in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Boston, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Check out the full list of tour dates below.

For Emmylou Harris, it's no cliche to say that every song is a story. The country legend has spent 50 years roaming between folk, bluegrass, rock'n'roll and Americana, curating her own songbook of deeply humanitarian music. On this first stop of her European farewell tour, she says goodbye to Scottish fans as part of the Celtic Connections festival, offering up a suitably career-spanning set-list accompanied by memories of Gram Parsons, Nanci Griffith, Bill Monroe, Townes Van Zandt and Willie Nelson, to name just a few.

Jeff Hanna, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founder and de facto leader, is tucked into a nondescript booth at El Palenque, a 30-years-plus local restaurant in a Nashville strip mall, talking about "Nashville Skyline," a pensive track from their EP, "Night After Night." The family-owned Mexican restaurant is the kind of place he's gravitated toward since starting a jug band with friends in Long Beach before migrating to Los Angeles' folk/rock scene.

Alabama country singer Drayton Farley has announced a new album, A Heavy Duty Heart, due March 27 via One Riot Records ( pre-order). Like 2023's great Twenty On High, it was produced by Sadler Vaden (of Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit), and it was recorded live to tape in Nashville with Drayton's touring band. It's got 10 new songs, three of which are out now, and two of those actually recently premiered on TV shows.

Titled "Streets of Minneapolis", the protest song pays tribute to Pretti and Good, while denouncing "King Trump's private army", who have "guns belted to their coats" and who "trample on our rights". The lyrics partly read: "Citizens stood for justice /Their voices ringing through the night /And there were bloody footprints /Where mercy should have stood /And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets /Alex Pretti and Renee Good."

After my workout, I become a fireman by checking my phone and seeing what's happening in the business, because there's always something burning. I respond to urgent messages so that I can focus on the day's mission. When you have 35-plus artists, there's always a meeting, new music to be made, and the next TV show to schedule. I eat light in the morning; I like to let the workout burn. I'm more of a green tea person, as that

Designed by Korean up-and-comer Woojin Yang, Everglow is a handheld mini-keyboard that fits into any bag. The "musical sketchbook" of sorts allows artists to quickly jot down ideas when they're not in front of their instruments or computers. The sleekly-designed device comes with a generative AI-based sound system that allows them to iterate and develop a song on the spot, not just transcribe the initial tune.

He sings the names of the dead haltingly, as though he is reading them off a screen-which, judging from the recording-studio footage in the song's lyric video, he probably is. The song is about the news, but it is also, perhaps unintentionally, about the moment of lag when we absorb the names and images, when we try to assimilate atrocity into narrative.

Meanwhile, his daytime trade as a geologist brought him from his home turf near Nashville to the Pacific Northwest, that rugged place whose seismic activity seems to thrum like the gears of a great subconscious. It's safe to say country music is in his blood-and so, one can imagine, are the seams of magma that crisscross the Ring of Fire. His new album Paleo Sol is like a seance with the elements.

PATIENT FOR THE ENCORE.