Shooby Taylor

William "Shooby" Taylor (September 19, 1929 – June 4, 2003) was an American jazz vocalist famous for scat singing over various records, including those of the Ink Spots, the Harmonicats, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, Mozart, and Cristy Lane, in a baritone voice.

Nicknamed "The Human Horn", he is noted for his highly idiosyncratic scat style, using sounds and syllables quite unlike those used by other scat singers.

Writing in ''The New York Times'', Marc Ferris noted that "those who seek out music that swims against the mainstream have been entranced by aylor'soriginality."

Music historian Irwin Chusid described Taylor as "the world's weirdest scat singer," "100 percent uninhibited and soulful, in a lovably demented way," and stated that "a joyousness permeates isperformances, a celebratory quality that serves as an analgesic for temporary relief from existential pain."

Biography

On September 19, 1929, Shooby Taylor was born in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania, a month before the Great Depression. In March of 1931, at the age of 18 months, Taylor moved to Harlem, New York City, where he spent the majority of his life. Taylor stuttered in his youth.

Circa 1946, Taylor married Sadie A.K.A. "Peaches" (last name unspecified), and at the age of 17 he had a son named William H. Taylor, Jr. The couple later divorced but remained friends until Sadie's death in the 1980s.

Taylor did not graduate high school. Circa 1947, as an 18-year-old, Taylor was drafted to the enter the army, and he wished to enter as a medic. However, due to his alcoholism, the army rejected him, marking him 4-F (unfit for service). Taylor overcame his alcoholism with Alcoholics Anonymous and Christian beliefs. The Selective Service System accepted Taylor when he was 23 in 1953, and he was sent to train in Augusta, Georgia for assignment to Korea.

Following his discharge in 1955, he began working as a clerk for the U.S. Post Office. Under the G.I. Bill of Rights, Taylor began studying at the Hartnett National Music Studio on 46th Street and 8th Ave in New York; his major was saxophone and his minor was in singing. A long-time jazz fan, he claimed he heard sounds in his head and felt the need to express them. After attempting to learn the saxophone, he realized he could instead employ his voice as an instrument, declaring "I am the horn!" In his youth, Taylor visited Catholic churches, Pentecostal churches, synagogues, and mosques and enjoyed all of the religious music, claiming, "All of them had good music that was good to them and good to me."

While in school, Taylor's voice teacher warned him that scatting would ruin his voice, and he stopped immediately, but eventually returned. Taylor performed at Harlem clubs and in Greenwich Village jam sessions, emulating the vocal style of Babs Gonzales; Gonzalez was Taylor's idol as a teenager.

He claimed to have gotten permission from Dizzy Gillespie to use the nickname "Shooby;" when he met Gillespie in a lobby in the 1970s and asked for permission, Gillespie stated, "Yeah, go ahead, guy! Go ahead!" Taylor adopted the moniker "Shooby Taylor, The Human Horn."

In 2002, he described his days working as a clerk at the Post Office:

I used to work from 4 to 12 so I can get off work and work the clubs...because I tried to make a name for myself. I would go to jam session nights, you see. I was unknown, trying to get my name known.

In the 1970s, he suffered a workplace injury and retired from the Post Office. Taylor's pension allowed him to devote his time to music, making numerous home recordings. In 1983, Taylor briefly appeared on the show '' Amateur Night at the Apollo,'' but was booed off the stage after roughly twenty seconds. This may be the only remaining video of his performances. In 2002, when asked to recall the event, Taylor recalled:

I was hurt, very hurt because I got booed off...And then I figured, "Oh, I did it wrong." But after months and months of thinking about it, I said, "I did it the way how I wanted to do it!"

Circa 1983, Taylor paid multiple visits to Angel Sound Studios in Times Square, where he recorded a number of tracks, and where he came to the attention of studio engineer Craig Bradley, who recalled "I was attuned to the unusual... Shooby was an exciting character, someone you were drawn to right away." Bradley later transferred the tracks to cassette and sent copies to WFMU manager Ken Freedman, who, with Irwin Chusid, began broadcasting and circulating them, leading to a growing cult following for Taylor and "generating a frothing fan base." Taylor, however, was unaware of the publicity, and his fans were unaware of his whereabouts. In 1992, Taylor moved to a senior complex in Newark, New Jersey

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases