At the ripe old age of 75, you’d expect many seasoned performers to be more than a little road-weary, sick of the touring and re-hashing the same old stories and songs night after night. Not so, with Chip Taylor. Here’s a man brimming with energy and bursting with worldly tales in song and spoken form.
There’s no need for a support act in The Errigle Inn. When you’ve got a bona-fide legend in the building, where would you even begin to look for a warm-up act. It’s straight in with no messing as the evening’s compere John McCart welcomes Taylor to the stage to warm applause from a fairly sizeable Thursday night crowd.
Most of the material comes from the 2009 ‘Yonkers NY’ album as well as his latest record ‘The Little Prayers Trilogy’. There’s faith, redemption, family and tales of childhood. In many ways in sound and form it’s similar to how I imagine watching Johnny Cash would have been, and with Chip Taylor playing a series of prison shows and having written tunes for the Man in Black it’s probably a fair comparison to make.
Taylor kicks off with ‘The Real Thing’, made famous by George Strait and jokes that Strait would never have sung it if the train had been bound for Bronxville rather than Atlanta. There’s a touch of drama and poetic license in most of Taylor’s work and from track one he’s in fine story telling mode, letting the music talk as much as he does. The guitar work of John Platania in accompaniment, in particular, takes songs places no words ever could. He’s a legendary performer in his own right and is the perfect on stage partner for Taylor, although everyone around here is reminiscing about the seminal work he did live with Van Morrison and on ‘Moondance’.
Chip Taylor is a fairly rock and roll, Americana name. It’s a little more glamorous than Wesley James Voight although the surname has done his brothers alright. Barry became the world’s leading volcanologist and of course, elder brother and actor Jon has done alright known for roles in ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and ‘Coming Home’. There’s an element of rose-tinted glasses as Taylor reminisces and riffs on his youth in Yonkers, New York with what he calls his ‘Bastard Brothers’ and speaks openly of his introduction to music at a young age.
Still railing against the system, he performs ‘Hey Johnny (Did You Feel That Movie’, with a nod to ‘Blackboard Jungle’ and interlude of Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around The Clock’ and a tale of how the radio used to routinely only play “white plastic crap”. In some ways the music industry has come a long way but in other ways it remains in a similar vein to those 1950s rock and roll days. Getting signed was just the beginning for Taylor and only after securing a publishing deal with Aaaron Schroeder and Wally Gold, did the hits start to come. We’re treated to ‘Just A Little Bit Later Down The Line’, made famous by Bobby Bare and the hit for Juice Newton ‘Angel of the Morning’ before a short break for breath.
The second half sees no let up. The hits keep coming, there’s ‘Big River’ and ‘Any Way That You Want Me’ before Taylor talks of his love of Northern Ireland and in particular his dear friend Gerry Anderson. There’s an emotional, yet rabble-rousing rendition of ‘Stroke City Girls’ with every place name and Northern Irish-ism receiving a little cheer. The crowd are in fine voice accompanying the sublime guitar work of Platania, who manages to slip a little strain of ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ alongside a shout-out to Chip’s new “Belfast friends” in ‘Czechoslovakian Heaven’.
A pint glass explodes somewhere behind the bar, the Errigle choir lifts is voice as one, Taylor rallies the troops with a cry of “this is what the spirit of rock and roll is about” and dedications to Reg Presley, Gerry Anderson, prisoners the world over and the broke and beaten down. ‘Wild Thing’ has never sounded so raw and visceral than in the hands of its author. The guitar drops out and we’re all shouting a capella. He may be getting on in years but this man can still raise a little hell and make all our hearts sing.
Thanks to everyone at The Real Music Club and The Errigle Inn.