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Chip Taylor's new album brings his family history to life Date published: 12/10/2009
BY JONAS BEALS Chip Taylor's father was an immigrant kid from the wrong side of the tracks. As Taylor tells it, his father used to sneak onto a local golf course when he was little. He learned the game and made a career as a golf pro. "My dad would wake me and my brothers up in the morning and say, 'Boys, the world is your oyster,'" Taylor said. "Mom and Dad were encouraging us to hop our own fences." It worked. Taylor's oldest brother, Barry Voight, is a renowned geologist and volcanologist; Jon Voight is an Oscar-nominated actor; and Chip Taylor, the youngest, is the songwriter responsible for "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning," among many other hits. The whole thing sounds like the epilogue of a feel-good novel, but truth can match fiction on occasion. Or the difference can be hard to detect. On the first track of his latest album, "Yonkers, NY," Taylor admits that he grew up believing his dad was a CIA agent, thanks to the stories he used to tell his sons. As a songwriter, Taylor has assumed his father's storytelling mantle, stringing listeners along an autobiographical arc too heartfelt and pure to be questioned. Vignettes touch on mundane events that eventually defined the lives of one American family. Taylor describes sitting on the periphery on his father's gin rummy games--a formative moment for Taylor, who temporarily left the music business in the 1970s to become a full-time professional gambler. "Hey Johnny (Did You Feel That Movie)" catches the moment that might have inspired two lives--when he and brother Jon saw "Blackboard Jungle" as kids. Jon may have been focused on Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier, but Taylor got a full dose of Bill Haley. On "Bastard Brothers," Taylor ribs his siblings for precipitating a turning point in his life--when they managed to convince their mother to replace young Chip's noisy violin with a more subtle ukulele. It's comforting, particularly in the holiday season, to think of Taylor's latest album as a sort of Jean Shepherd-ian tale of idealized suburban upbringing. Taylor stops mid-song on occasion to tell a story rather than sing it, unearthing gauzy childhood tales reminiscent of "A Christmas Story."
Date published: 12/10/2009
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