Charles Anthony Taliaferro (born July 4, 1955 in

Richards, Texas Richards is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in eastern Grimes County, Texas, United States. The community is located on Farm roads 1486 and 149. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad line passes the east sid ...

) is an American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer. Taliaferro began playing

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

in his family's gospel group, but later began playing piano. He moved to

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

at age 25 and held day jobs, until he was discovered by singer

Dottie West Dorothy Marie Marsh West (October 11, 1932 – September 4, 1991) was an American country music singer and songwriter. Along with her friends and fellow recording artists Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, she is considered one of the genre's most in ...

. West hired him and had him as her pianist and bandleader, with his first gig occurring at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

. Taliaferro continued to tour with his bandmates, The Lloyds, after West died in 1991, and released a self-titled debut album through

Curb Records Curb Records (also known as Asylum-Curb and formerly known as MCG Curb) is an American record label started by Mike Curb, originally as Sidewalk Records in 1963. From 1969 to 1973, Curb merged with MGM Records where Curb served as President of ...

the same year. Six years later, he released a second album, ''Half Saint, Half Sinner'' through

Rising Tide Records Rising Tide Records was a record label started by Doug Morris, former head of Warner Music Group, and Daniel Glass, who became President. The label had success in breaking new artists, including the multi-platinum debut of Erykah Badu, Billie M ...

. This album included two singles that made the

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

charts: "Bettin' Forever on You" and "He's on the Way Home".

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

Music videos

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toliver, Tony American country singer-songwriters American male singer-songwriters Curb Records artists Rising Tide Records artists Singer-songwriters from Texas Living people 1955 births Country musicians from Texas