Eric Taylor’s life reads like a script for a biopic about an aging musician whose stories are written in his weathered face. He came up in the Houston music circuit with the likes of Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt before making a name for himself with the soulful Shameful Love. But following the release of the 1981 album, he fell into drug addiction and didn’t make another album until 1995.
It’s only fitting that the 60-year-old survivor is making his third appearance at the Henry Miller Library this Saturday; much of his work is inspired by literary figures like Hemingway, Kerouac and Miller.
“You can’t grow up in my generation and not somehow be influenced by Tropic of Cancer,” Taylor says. “When I write, I start with a story and then write the soundtrack for it.”
The rich country ballad “Strong Enough For Two” moved folk legend Joan Baez so much, she contacted Taylor.
“One Sunday morning I got a call and it was Joan,” Taylor says. “She said, ‘I can’t figure out where you’re going with the chords on this song, can you help me out?’ So I put it on speakerphone and we worked through it.”
Two days later, Baez and Taylor performed the song together at the Newport Folk Festival. Both Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffith have also been seduced by Taylor’s work and covered his songs.
Taylor is currently working on a one-man play that he may give folks a taste of in Big Sur.
Taylor is one of the versatile music options in Big Sur this weekend, which includes a Grateful Dead tribute band and a goofball proto-punk rocker.
At Fernwood, the China Cats will pay homage to an immortal cultural phenomenon. Santa Cruz – the future home of the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz – is the perfect breeding ground for the Dead cover band.
Singer/guitarist Scott Cooper experienced his first Dead show in college. “The rest was history,” he says.
Cooper says his favorite Dead songs feature Bob Weir’s distinct guitar riffs – “Cassidy,” “Casey Jones” and “Here Comes Sunshine.”
Like the Dead, the Cats can play well into the wee hours; at recent show in the Central Valley, they played four encores.
Cooper – who teaches guitar at UCSC – is ecstatic about the archive opening on the welcoming campus. “All the Santa Cruz people are honored that it’s here,” he says.
The weekend of music in Big Sur will close on Sunday afternoon with an intimate performance from Jonathan Richman at Henry Miller Library.
Scoring an interview with Richman is as difficult as convincing Paris Hilton to wear underwear. The reclusive musician – who wrote the Modern Lover’s hit “Roadrunner” and was the musical narrator in There’s Something About Mary – is notoriously known for his reticence; he doesn’t even use e-mail or a cell phone. But Richman’s evasion of the media is just another piece of his oddball persona that has spawned songs with titles like “You Can Have a Cell Phone That’s OK But Not Me” and “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar.”
His deadpan tenor and delivery is reminiscent of a kindergartener at show-and-tell. Richman’s catchy songs, pokerfaced humor and unconventional demeanor have yielded a large cult following. With more an more weekends like these, so has the Big Sur music scene.
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