About

songwriter / vocals / acoustic resonator / electric guitar

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     Taylor has been exposed to old country and bar band blues/rock since she could talk & walk.  She started getting up to sing on stage with her mom's boyfriend, Bill, who played lead guitar in various bands across metro east St. Louis at age 4.  She would sing 50's & 60's rock songs like Good Golly Miss Molly (Little Richard),  Devil With a Blue Dress (Mitch Ryder), Do Wah Diddy Diddy (Manfred Mann), & Walking the Dog (Rufus Thomas) and sometimes even strum on an unplugged acoustic guitar on stage, without knowing any chords of course. She grew up in Collinsville, IL with her single mother who always encouraged her talent.  Bill's father, Bill Sr. , took Taylor in as his grandaughter and taught her to play guitar at age 8.  He would take her to bluegrass jam sessions at the Millersburg General Store on Sundays where she would sit in with the circle of seasoned players trying to keep up with each song.  She would also sing songs like Crazy (Patsy Cline), I Wanna Be a Cowgirl's Sweetheart (Patsy Montana) and Your Cheatin' Heart (Hank Williams) while her grandpa (she always called him Big Bull) would accompany her on guitar.  Being exposed to all of this music and retaining basic song structure allowed songwriting to come naturally.  Taylor started writing at age 11 and would spend hours in her room getting lost in learning new songs and writing her own all throughout her preteen/teen years. 

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In 2012 she moved in with her dad and started her freshman year of high school in Greenville, IL.  She became apart of the weekly open mic at what was Adam Brother's Music and Coffee House downtown where she met many of the people that would become important and supportive in her life.  A small artistic community embraced her.  She befriended two older hippie musicians that made up the band Wildflower Conspiracy and spent much of her free time jamming with them in their living room and sharing original songs and stories.  After graduating high school, she moved into the historic jailhouse in Greenville on College Ave with her friend and woman mentor Deb Garde, who had played bass at the Adam Bros open mic.

While living there she started gigging and worked part time at the local country radio station WGEL as a DJ.

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She discovered the Effingham, IL music community when she met Bill Poss in 2015.  She started attending Bill's Songwriter Open Mic at Village Wine downtown and became a regular.  She was welcomed by a whole group of musicians and music supporters that played a part in supporting original music in the community and helped make Mocassin Creek Music Festival, put on by Bill each year, happen.  This open mic is also where she met all of her future band mates.  She played as a solo artist for the first time at Moccasin Creek Festival at age 18 and moved to Effingham in 2017.  

At Moccasin Creek Festival in 2017, she sang onstage with Ray Wylie Hubbard on "You Gotta Move" during his encore performance.

Since the Love Preachers formed in 2017, she continuously elevates her stage performance and singing ability as if she has broken out of her shell and is singing for the whole world to hear.  

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She now lives in Teutopolis, IL with her coffee roasting boyfriend Danny and their dog Ellie as a full time musician and a music mentor and teacher through Tri Music NFP.