UK guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Joanne Shaw Taylor is currently touring the US and will be making a stop at The Muddy Waters, 1708 State Street, Bettendorf, IA on Friday, November 15. This exceptional show is being presented by The Mississippi Valley Blues Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the general public about the native art form of blues-related music through performance, interpretation and preservation. Joanne's performance will start at 9:00 p.m. with a $15 cover charge, or $12 for members of the Mississippi Valley Blues Society.
When Joanne Shaw Taylor was called to the Buckingham Palace stage by Annie Lennox, 17 million viewers were asking "who's that girl?" She was an unintimidated 16-year-old, played a savage Les Paul solo, and brought an attitude that indicated she was going to be a star. Soon enough, the buzz built and the new-girl-on-the-block soon became the "Best British Female Vocalist" at both the 2010 and 2011 British Blues Awards.
Joanne never imagined any of that at the start. She was just a country schoolgirl, bored with the music she heard on late-'90s pop radio, and decided to drop out of school and try her fate in the music industry. As destiny would have it, her demo tape landed in the hands of Eurythmics icon Dave Stewart. Stewart recalls that "she made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end", and his phone call the following day proved the start of a lasting friendship. Joanne accompanied Stewart's supergroup across Europe in 2002.
Stewart offered Joanne her first deal, and once the dam broke, things moved fast. In 2008, she was working with veteran producer Jim Gaines (Carlos Santana, Johnny Lang, Stevie Ray Vaughan), bassist Dave Smith, and drummer Steve Potts on the songs that became her debut album, White Sugar. Since then, she's broken into the notoriously hard-to-crack US market, beaten the stereotypes of her age and gender, and won the respect of the guitar giants of today.
"There are a lot of great guitarists and singers in the blues today," says Joe Bonamassa. "What I see in Joanne Shaw Taylor that sets her apart from the rest is the ability to write a great song. Not only is she a killer guitarist and singer, but you find yourself walking away from her shows singing her songs as well."
