Tasha Taylor – Taylor Made 12.23.11

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Tasha Taylor

Taylor Made

Tasha Taylor Music

BluesWax Rating: 9

Debut Album from Johnnie Taylor’s Daughter Is a Winner

Do couples still have romantic evenings together? You know, long, candlelit dinners, real conversations, maybe a little slow dancing to love songs. Well if they do, Tasha Taylor has made the music for them. The youngest daughter of R&B legend Johnnie Taylor recently released her debut solo album, Taylor Made, and I’m going to predict that anyone who buys it will be glad they did.

To put it right out there, this girl can sing. She’s got a voice with the power and toughness to deliver a knockout version of her dad’s famous tune, “Who’s Making Love,” and an equally sweet and sexy self-penned “Queen,” about giving herself totally to one man.

In addition to the clever double entendre contained in the album’s title, the family feeling of this thirteen-song set is enhanced by the presence of older brother Jon Taylor on guitar and an at-home photo of dad, mom, Jon, and Tasha at about age three. Tasha also offers heartfelt dedications to her parents, and most of all, there’s the lovely, Tasha-written tune “Daddy’s Girl” that ends the CD.

Tasha is a multi-talented lady, and that’s putting it mildly. She’s studied acting professionally for years and been in several films, including a leading role in the recent Showtime/BET release Heaven Ain’t Hard to Find. She’s appeared in a couple dozen TV shows as diverse as House, Ugly Betty, and Family Matters. She’s a regular on the Blues Brothers tours and has acted in many plays from Fiddler on the Roof to Annie.

Soon Tasha will be headed to Broadway to play Margie Hendrix (aka Hendricks) in Unchain My Heart, the Ray Charles musical. “Margie was a Raelette who was in a love triangle with Ray and his wife Della [Beatrice Howard],” Tasha explains. “She has great songs in the play. I’m looking forward to it.”

Tasha’s musical chops are impressive. In addition to a strong and marvelous voice, she plays guitar and keyboards. She wrote or co-wrote the words and melodies for twelve of the thirteen songs on Taylor Made. She produced the album and arranged the horns, along with Joey Berkley, and designed the artwork, too. Whew!

She’s also a knockout live performer, as this writer witnessed on the recent Pacific Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. Sitting in with several stars, from Bobby Womack to Elvin Bishop, Tasha commanded every person’s attention. Usually, she’s working around the Los Angeles area that she calls home, but after this CD, people in lots of places may be clamoring to see her in their towns.

So would she rather sing or act? “Sing,” she says. “I often act when I’m on stage singing. They go hand and hand often.”

And I might as well say it: Tasha is runway-model beautiful, with one of the prettiest smiles you’ve ever seen. Refreshingly, that beauty seems to extend well below skin deep. Despite the inevitable attention redirected to her widely influential father, Tasha seems much more appreciative than annoyed. There’s that too-cute photo on the CD, a string of liner note “Love U’s” to her mom and brother, and the really fine “Daddy’s Girl” mentioned above. She even has a “Dad” tab on her website.

“Dad was a great artist,” Tasha told me. “[He was] a triple threat. He sang, danced, and acted in film.”

Taylor Made begins with a twenty-second vintage introduction of Johnnie – who died much too young at sixty-six in 2000. That leads into the Blues Wailer’s recognizable scream to open “Who’s Making Love.” The 1968 smash hit reached number five on Billboard’s Top 100, number one on the R&B charts, and sold well over a million copies for Stax Records. Tasha takes it from there, delivering a foot-stomping rendition featuring blistering horns, funky guitar, and Tasha providing both the hot leads and backup vocals.

There are up-tempo tunes with optimistic, uplifting feelings like “I Got Love” – with its toe-tapping chorus of “I got music/I got hope/I got love” – and get-up-and-dance riffs like “Sexy Lady” and “Wonder Woman” – all resembling Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye more than Tina Turner and Sam Cooke. And it absolutely works here.

Much credit has to go to the excellent supporting musicians and arrangements that are pleasing instead of plodding. Aforementioned Taylor and Kyle Bolden share the guitar work, with backbeats from Kerry Griffen on drums, Kevin Richard on percussion, and Nathan Watts‘ thumping bass. Rahn Coleman, Roman Johnson, and Mike Finnigan add keyboard licks along with Tasha.

The six backup horns – Berkley, Zane Musa, Stephan Baxter, Nolan Shaheed, Brian Pareschi, and Gerard Carelli – are essential to the great groove created on many of these cuts, and they shine repeatedly, adding a smokey ambience and necessary nuance to the having-love, wanting-love, and doubting-love tunes that populate this set.

Tasha also surrounded herself with some outstanding behind-the-scenes talent, including producers and arrangers Stuart “Ray” Benjamin and Noisy Neighbors’ Rob Arbitter and Gary Adante, whose work includes Stevie Wonder’s Motown blockbuster Songs in the Key of Life, ranked number fifty-six on Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time.

And several songs on Taylor Made recall the glory days of Motown Soul – none more than “Queen,” which should be an instant hit for every outlet that plays it or sells it. Dripping with Tasha’s vocal emotion, this is the kind of love song that makes you remember to care about your lover and want to slow dance with her (or him).

Musically, this album is just about as good as it can be, practically flawless. Listen to it with headphones, if you can, and you’ll hear the intricate instrumentation that blends everything expertly. On “Badman” there are strong solos from horns, guitars, keys, and percussion, but it’s the way it all fits together that keeps me wanting to hear it again and again. It’s got a nifty vocal hook too – “He was a bad man/With cold hands/Left me in a tough jam.”

On that one and “Refund” – among others – Tasha shows off her solid vocal skills, as she hits staccato high notes with precision and pumps out the choruses in perfect pitch. “Refund” reprises a familiar theme, an unfaithful lover, but in a fresh way that modernizes it, for lack of a better term.

There are extremely fine rhythms going on throughout this CD, as various bass, percussion, and delightful keyboard work push songs along at just the right pace. “Wonder Woman,” “Sexylady,” and “What Difference Does it Make” have particularly funk-based organ/piano riffs. The latter song describes various luxuries that don’t matter, if you don’t love me.

Perfect for the holidays, you’ll want to hurry to your keyboard and download a copy of “Merry Christmas Baby,” which proves that there’s always one more great love song for the season, this one an emotional yearning for a loved one who’s not there now, and might never be?

I like this CD a lot. It qualifies as much more than a “debut.” It’s as good as any soul or R&B record I’ve heard in years. Johnnie Taylor passed on before he could fully enjoy the superstar acclaim he surely would have received. With this wonderful album, Tasha Taylor seems ready to pick up right where he left off. I’m looking forward to her next one.

Dan D. Harrell is contributing writer for BluesWax and president of The Write Answer in San Jose, CA, specializing in writing, public relations and marketing consulting. Contact him by commenting below or at dan@writeanswer.biz.