The Greig Taylor Band 2026
Take A Left…
Scottish blueswailer and his crew of merry lads lead their listener around the bend, towards sorrow and joy.
There’s a thriving blues scene in Glasgow, the kind of which wasn’t seen since STONE THE CROWS walked the streets of the city, what with KING KING going national and now THE GREIG TAYLOR BAND heading for the same glory. The singer the latter enterprise is named after has been around for more than a decade now, his discography under different guises numbering several releases, yet “Take A Left…” – a follow-up to 2023’s “The Light” – is only the second album from this outfit, and it’s much more focused than the first. Whereas the group’s debut comprised original material, as they went for stylistic diversity there to emphasize his various influences, the ten tracks on offer here include quite a few covers to stress, in an old-fashioned way, the quintet’s strengths as performers.
Still, if, for lesser mortals, interpreting the funky, deliciously rough likes of “I Don’t Need No Doctor” and “I’m A Ram” would be a litmus test in terms of applying imagination to the staples and staying faithful to one’s chosen genre, Greig doesn’t attempt to imitate, respectively, Ray Charles and Al Green, or Solomon Burke once the passionate “None Of Us Are Free” is brought forth for all to enjoy. And why should he, when it’s the dance-inducing, singalong-eliciting “Consequences” which Taylor co-wrote with his four colleagues that takes pride of place in the middle of this record? His heavy, albeit initially sparse, “Ain’t Got You” may shape the initial gloom, as Brian McFie’s guitar licks cut the cavernous space, but the warbler’s husky-to-honeyed vocals and Kenneth Clark’s cosmic ivories fill the ether to penetrate every fiber of the audience’s psyche until there’s no darkness left to lift.
The collective reach for the Bo Diddley beat on the finger-popping, increasingly otherworldly titular piece, which drenches the voice in haze to accentuate the mighty groove Nelson McFarlane’s bass and Dave Cantwell’s drums lay down, and they deliver “Fast Women And Slow Horses” with a lot of riff-driven and organ-fueled gusto. Given a dynamically defiant rhythm-and-blues jive, Lou Reed’s “Sally Can’t Dance” works wonders too, yet then there are the ear-scratching “Big Dawg Blues” which is infectiously funny in its predatory panache, and the piano-splashed “Gravy Train” which serves up a faux-live finale in a rockabilly manner to whet the punters’ appetite for the band’s next endeavor… Or at least, spin this platter again and again.
*****
