Ben Taylor and Sonya Kitchell tear up the Brewing Co.
Reviewing a musician who happens to be the offspring of two other famous musicians is problematic. Naturally, the thing to do would be to compare and contrast the former in reference to the latter. Suggestions of entitlement, lousy covers, extravagant addictions, reality shows-the predictability is astounding. The same
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can be said about reviewing a talented musician who is particularly young.
It's not like Ben Taylor's and Sonya Kitchell's upcoming show at the Santa Fe Brewing Company will quash these preconceptions of youth and privilege. But with their acoustic guitars in tow, these musicians define their unique talents by retooling the songs they sing and building on their musical legacies.
Taylor's latest release,
Deeper Than Gravity
, is an EP collection of six songs defined by minimalist compositions and nifty covers. In spite of its brevity, the album exposes an artist comfortably taking sentimental risks without the hackneyed
lovelorn. "You write songs that appeal to people, but that doesn't mean that you have to write a long list of clichés," Taylor says over the phone on his way to a show at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. "You have to provide fresh perspective."
The EP begins with a live version of "Nothing I Can Do," a song from his previous collection
Another Run Around the Sun
. His rich and expressive voice moves nimbly through the track. When Taylor sings, "First morning ever to have seen the sun/Must have run the other way/Until she found that it was only getting earlier that way," we are introduced to a songwriter concerned not only with reinvention but also with variation, an artist responding rather than reacting. The second verse continues: "When she spun one-hundred eighty degrees/And beheld the sweet light rising through the trees/She fell to her knees and began to smile, because/She had been in darkness for a long long while." Taylor doesn't go for the easy kill. He prefers the finer points-less obvious details about events that concern us all.
Other songs include "I Try," a tune made famous by Macy Gray. Taylor describes it as a "sing-along" for his live show arsenal. Taylor recontextualizes Gray's raspy cadences with pared and unassuming tones, realizing its poignancy previously hidden by over-production. "I Try" is one of two covers on the EP. The other, Pee Wee King's "You Belong to Me," Taylor softens into almost a vesper. "I work best with as is little production as possible," Taylor says. "The EP was an organic, naturally evolved project recorded mostly while on the road."
Taylor's music, at times, resembles his father's (James Taylor), and there certainly are worse things, but Taylor adds an edgy resistance to his quiet-storm birthright. And, unlike many
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of his folksy contemporaries, a subtle and unprescribed world view makes Taylor's songs remarkable.
Avoiding the subject almost successfully, I finally ask about his family. "I owe everything to my parents," he says.
"They support us as parents, but we are on our own."
The "we" he speaks of includes his sister Sally Taylor, another singer-songwriter within the Taylor family. He makes a good point by stating simply that he enjoys talking about his folks. "Who doesn't?" he quips. Still, one would suspect that his involvement in music, with respect to his father, James, and mother, Carly Simon, would be idealistic. "I'm not rich," he says in response to my question about common misconceptions. Nor is he lazy. Tracing his never-ending tour schedule on a map with a Sharpie would resemble an ant colony display at the science fair.
Sharing the stage, band and tour with Taylor is Sonya Kitchell, a 17-year-old singer-songwriter whose recent debut album,
Words Came Back to Me
, has been drawing prodigious comparisons to Joni Mitchell and even Van Morrison. Taylor describes her as a "phenomenal" talent. Indeed. Not shying away from her influences, Kitchell's voice, which, you may have guessed, is mature beyond her years, adds a frank yet beautiful variation to familiar ground. Once again, the focus on her age is an unfortunate lead-in to an otherwise unrelenting talent. "Her songwriting is evolving. I can't wait for the future," Taylor adds.
Her vast interests within the musical spectrum may be mistaken for vocal flippancy and undefined style rather than the impressive range of her alto voice and songwriting skills. Kitchell wrote all 12 tracks on
Words
-a feat not even Norah Jones can claim-although she does cover the occasional jazz standard during live performances.
We live in an age when three chords and the truth have been replaced by sampling, distortion and big beats. They've made music interesting, but they have also created distressing shortcuts in songwriting. The voices and melodies of Taylor and Kitchell may sound familiar, but their quiet innovative styles, lyrical phrasing and passion for touring make these two artist worthy of the legacies they carry and create.
