BEE TAYLOR

is a once-in-a-generation talent whose live shows have become legendary for those who have attended them. Now, her debut studio album will allow the world to witness that power. 

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Onstage, Bee Taylor is equal parts lioness and songbird. Sometimes she stalks the space, a mesmerizing performer who is dancing, singing, playing instruments, and completely engaging with the audience that surges closer to the stage, eager to be near the fire that burns so bright there. On other songs she is commanding as she stands still at center stage, belting out a ballad that hushes the most raucous rooms.  Music-lovers leave her shows as newly converted evangelists, encouraging others to see her. That word of mouth has traveled and now many await the release of Twenty Seven, which drops November 15.

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Some might doubt that such a ferocious live show can be captured accurately on a studio album but on Twenty Seven Taylor draws in the listener and won’t let go, with eleven concise, sexy, and powerful songs, all written by her, and delivered with sonic force by her energetic band and the producing skills of Grammy-nominated Duane Lundy, who has also worked with artists such as Sturgill Simpson, Ringo Starr, Jim James, and others.

 

Taylor says she leaned on Lundy to capture the sonic landscape she had in mind. “He is a master of texturing and subtle details,” she says. “All I asked from him is that it keep a kind of art nouveau femininity in its sound.” 

 

That feminine expression is important to Taylor, and it reverberates throughout the recording as we are carried through the songs by a series of narrators who deliver the full spectrum of a woman’s desires, joys, and sorrows, whether she’s expressing her deepest romantic hopes and fears on songs like “Ethereal Love”, “Hurt Me” and “Horse Runnin’”, the pining desire of “Down to the Floor” and the Tom Waits-inspired “Hens to Cackle”, or the crowd-pleasing euphemisms of “Peaches”, which has become one of the highlights of her live shows. There’s the deeply moving “Don’t Forget”, a plaintive and vulnerable plea for understanding, “Randy Newman”, which pulls a clever twist by revealing that the narrator is singing to her favorite singers instead of a romantic partner, and the unusual and intoxicating POV of opium on the final slow boil track, “Down in the Den”, which allows Taylor and the stand-out band to exhibit their diverse talents. 

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Taylor describes the gathering of songs on Twenty Seven as “an odyssey of human emotions”.

 

The album never takes a break from its high energy mix of vocals and rich musical arrangements; it is one of those records that you can put on for dancing, a good cry, or a dinner party, managing to put all of Taylor’s immense talents on display. They’re present from the first second of the album, when we hear Taylor playing the opening notes on piano and launching into the title track, which turns the whole notion of the Twenty Seven Club on its head with a rousing mix of strings and horns along with her diverse vocal delivery, which can lurk among the lowest notes or take flight on the highest ones. 

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The tireless passion throughout the album reveals a work ethic that was formed for Taylor from a young age. She grew up on a cattle farm in East Texas and bought her first guitar as a teenager by raising piglets that she took to sell at market. When she was thirteen she and her mother would spend their weekends traveling the dusty roads of Texas to play the Opry circuit. “I knew I loved it, but I wasn’t sure if it was what I was meant for,” she says, so she spent time in fervent mediation, crying and asking out loud if her purpose was to be a musician. “Since that time I have never doubted or questioned my purpose, and it has kept the lantern flame burning inside of me, even at times when the rest of life seemed very dark and foggy.”

 

Taylor says that listening to herself has been an important guiding voice throughout her career, and it’s one that was fostered as a child when her parents showed her how to care for animals. “They taught me how to be guardians for these beings—cows, pigs, goats, horses—who had no voice to tell you when they were hurt, or scared, or in need. You had to be patient and learn their language…and in a similar way I think songs are that for me. I don’t always know how to say I’m hurt, or confused, or afraid, but if I can out those things in a song, it feels like I have a voice that can now be heard.”

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By doing so, Taylor has put our own spectrum of emotions on record and Twenty Seven delivers everything one would want in an album, from fun to introspection, songs you can’t help but to dance along to and deliveries that hit you in the gut. Twenty Seven should be played loudly or on earbuds so every artistic choice can be savored.

 

Taylor’s vocals, which can sometimes contain the same richness of Florence Welch or the delicate yet forceful beauty of Linda Ronstadt, are ultimately always her own, with Taylor inserting her own nuances in a way no one else can. 

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Taylor says the rare fear of capturing the energy of their live shows so accurately on a studio album was accomplished largely due to the talents of her band. “Those guys have got my back, and because we’ve played together so much there is an unspoken flow that happens (for us),” she says. “I think I most love that they are all identifiable in their playing voice. Very grateful for that crew.” 

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Her feelings about performing live can also be applied to the experience of listening to Twenty Seven: “I just want people to have an experience. I want them to be able to escape whatever they are dealing with, while giving them a space that might help them look at the feelings they’re experiencing. I want them to be free to be themselves. I want them to have feelings of discovery, curiosity, and childlike wonder. I want to give them everything, because they give so much to me. And hopefully they will leave inspired to help others they meet along the way.”

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Twenty Seven is an album that delivers on all of these fronts, and Bee Taylor is certainly one of the most exciting and talented artists of her generation; it’s time that the world knows her music and can be moved by it as profoundly as her live audiences have been. 

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Get ready for Twenty Seven.  

Prepare yourself for the amazing talent of Bee Taylor. ​​