Album Notes

Katy Taylor "Warm Covers for Cold Nights"

Mountain Music Machine - 041

Comments from Joe Ross review;

"Traditional and acoustic music is solidly grounded and grows profusely in the fertile valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains where the states of Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina meet. Katy covers a broad range of visceral material drawn from popular country, bluegrass, early rock and roll and Gospel music.

Katy Taylor gives us some passionate crooning and robust vocals that are delivered with plenty of personality. With the distinctive stamp of some exceptional singers and pickers, the resulting music is mighty powerful and memorable." (Joe Ross)

Comments from Dave Higgs WPLN-FM, Nashville, TN;

"Katy Taylor has a warm, friendly and engaging voice that covers a wide variety of materiel in a most compelling fashion. I think she does a terrific job on Mr. Sandman, Blue Heartache, I Only Want to Be With You, Oh Boy and Gone At Last." (Dave Higgs)


From the Liner Notes:

Touring Bluegrass musicians who hear the kind of "local" musicians who are found on this CD often have a surprised response that goes something like, "Why haven't I heard of you?". One answer is that here in the mountainous intersection of Western North Carolina, Southwest Virginia, and East Tennessee, "local musicians" means something a little different, because local musicians include not only household names such as Ralph Stanley, Doyle Lawson and Doc Watson, but also a host of people you have never heard of who pick and sing at or near that same level. For these people, music is not something one discovers on recordings and then tries to imitate; its is simply a traditional part of life, as it has been for generations.
(A local fiddler commented recently that it wasn't until he went to college that he learned there were people in the world who did not pick.) But this region is a wellspring of innovation as much as it is a reservoir of tradition, as you will hear in this project's genre-crossing material, sophisticated picking, and classy singing. Producer Hugh Sturgill helped change the sound of bluegrass recording in the 1970's by presenting groups such as J.D.Crowe and the New South and Spectrum with state of the art production values and innovative material, and now in the digital age he gives the same treatment to a group of musicians who represent some of the best unsung talent this corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains has to offer.

Dave Haney - (Chair, Department of English, and teacher of "Bluegrass Traditions" course, Appalachian State University; guitar player and lead singer, Joe Val and The New England Bluegrass Boys, 1981-85)