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Melvin Taylor
Biography
Chicago-based guitarist Melvin Taylor is a star in Europe, but it may take some time for U.S. audiences to catch on to just how phenomenally talented a bluesman he is. Part of the problem for Taylor may be his own natural eclecticism. He's equally adept playing jazz or blues, but in the last few years, he's forged a name for himself as a blues guitarist with a slew of releases for Evidence Music. Taylor may well be the most talented new guitarist to come along since Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Taylor was born in Mississippi but raised in Chicago after the family moved there in 1962. He learned guitar from his mother's brother, Uncle Floyd Vaughan, who jammed to tunes by Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Howlin' Wolf with his buddies. By the time Taylor was 12, he was sitting in with his uncle and other grown-ups at those sessions. Almost entirely self-taught, the young Taylor learned slide playing, finger-picking and flat-picking styles from his favorite recordings by B.B. King, Albert King and Jimi Hendrix.

In his teens, Taylor joined the Transistors, a group managed by his future father-in-law, and they made their mark playing popular music of the 1970s at talent shows and night clubs. After the Transistors broke up in the early 1980s, Taylor again devoted his full attention to playing blues in the Windy City's West Side clubs.
Selected Discography