JOHN P. TAYLOR BAND ‘RIVER FLOW’ (MIRAGE MUSIC/UK IMPORT)

JOHN P. TAYLOR is a musician, engineer and producer based in North Yorkshire, UK and he was kind enough to send me his 3 CDs. I was immediately impressed when putting on his first album Realtime from 2017, which was released under his own name, while the 2 other albums are released under the JOHN P. TAYLOR BAND moniker. Anyway, when doing my research, it seems like I already did a write up on a band he was involved with in the past, because the legendary melodic rockband BIG GUNS belted out a couple of sensational albums back in the 90s, and we reviewed them! I found out John produced them, so there is already a connection between Strutter’zine and John. Now let’s talk about his own music, which is very sensational actually. John is a great singer/songwriter/guitarist and his music fits somewhere between Americana bluesy rock, mature Melodic Rock/AOR and a little bit of Soul, kinda like a mixture between ROBERT PALMER, CHRIS REA and JOHN MAYER, with also some STEVE OVERLAND, PAUL RODGERS and ROBERT HART memories, while musically it’s a mix of these singers’ music/bands as well. I have really enjoyed listening to his wonderful albums, with as highlights on the first 2 albums the superb uptempo AOR pieces Save the day (a la JOHN TAGLIERI/JOURNEY), Slow time tonight and A better way, the AORish ballad Dark side of the night and the bluesy melodic rocker So much more. In 2020 the JOHN P. TAYLOR BAND (further consisting of bassist CHRIS RINGER, guitarist GEOFF KEELER, keyboardplayer CHRIS ATKINS-GROOM and drummer DAN HIGGINS) released their latest album River flow, which seems to be their most diverse album so far, starting quite calm, but developing into a very professional record that seems to be heading more into a pure Southern/Bluesy (Hard) Rock direction, and this is of course not bad at all! And besides, there is still enough other music styles to be heard as well, such as the lovely semi-westcoast ballad Shine on, which sounds like a classic groovy mixture of STEELY DAN and ROBERT PALMER in his finest days. Other highlights are the bluesy early BLACK STONE CHERRY/WHITESNAKE-ish melodic rockers Devil shine a light on me and Anything you need, but also the uptempo AOR song This time, the uptempo melodic rocker Let it go and the first couple of calmer bluesy southern rocksongs River flow and Lie to me some more. I was really overwhelmed by the incredible high level of John’s voice and music, because it sounds so crystal clear and perfect, so I really wonder why he hasn’t had his breakthrough yet. Also fans of KENNY WAYNE SHEPHARD will love this a lot, while STEVE OVERLAND, ROBERT HART fans and people of the old school ROBERT PALMER/JOHN MAYER, they will all be impressed when hearing JOHN P. TAYLOR (BAND)’s music. Check out all on him at: www.johnptaylor.co.uk