BIO
Taylor Tuke is a singer, songwriter, producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist and performer based in Nashville, Tennessee. He has collaborated with Grammy-award winning artists and hit songwriters and has an undying passion to bring people together and to keep them connected through the healing and transformative power of music. His velvet baritone vocals, acoustic guitar and organic approach to songwriting will inspire you to take an active step towards making the world a more beautiful place
In 2022 Taylor was a finalist at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival songwriter showcase and performed on the main stage in a lineup with Bruce Hornsby, Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco and Sarah Jarosz. He has written and produced music in a variety of genres including soulful R&B, hard rock, mellow singer-songwriter, cinematic film-score and electronic synthesis. He has a respectable track record as a nationally touring independent artist and currently works as an in-house session player at Hidden Creek Studios in Nashville. His primary project (The Taylor Tuke Trio) holds several residencies in Nashville as a professional blues/rock/soul band challenging the status quo in Music City
Original Film Music
Mallet George
From The Ground Up
_ Different Light _
_w/ Kerala (JJ EVANOFF)_
My Story
The first concert I remember going to was the Allman Brothers Band at Red Rocks. I was in middle school and my dad took me and a friend. We did the whole thing and spent the entire day tailgating in the parking lot absorbing the culture watching all of the hippies and the stoners and the bikers and I didn’t know what the colorful bell-bottoms or the skunky smoke meant but it felt right. The sun set behind the stage and sank into Denver and a heavy rainstorm rolled in. The wind was blowing it all sideways and the crew had to assemble a tent around Greg Allman while he ripped an organ solo. I was so tired and soaked through to the bone but couldn’t sleep during the car ride home at two in the morning and had the melodies of “Mountain Jam” running through my head
That’s a terribly high place to start out as a concert-goer. From then on I felt out of place in the crowd and needed to be on the stage
My father has a huge CD collection that overflows out of the TV cabinet drawers. The records have inspired me constantly since I was a kid. Miles, Coltrane, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Robin Trower, Tribe Called Quest, 2Pac, Biggie, Lou Reed, Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, BB King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks… the list goes on, man
I also dig film-music a lot, you know, Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, Alan Silvestri, Thomas Newman and James Newton Howard. I gotta say my favorite is Alexandre Desplat for all of his awesome-weird-quirkiness in the Wes Anderson movies
At some point in high school I traveled to LA with my folk-duet partner at the time and we found ourselves in Harry Gregson-Williams’ studio watching over his shoulder while he was scoring a scene for ‘Prometheus’ and although I didn’t know how to appreciate it at the time I’m kicking myself now going “holy sh** that was cool why did I take that for granted?”. You know being young and all I had this ego like it was the most normal thing to be doing. We stayed in a little beach cottage in Venice and those are the high times that are so hard to get back when they’re gone
I ended up moving to LA and worked at a fine restaurant called Republique in order to survive. My role was baker and my hours were 2am-noon and it screwed everything up for a career in music but I learned so much and I absolutely f*ng love that place. It got rated “Best Restaurant” by the LA Weekly while I was there. On Tuesday nights I conjured up some mojo to sit in with Dave Yaden at Black Rabbit Rose in Hollywood, this dark moody magician-themed night club with little vials of mystery fluids in the glass cabinets and Harry Houdini wallpaper in the bathroom. They would hire magicians to walk around to the tables and do card tricks and black magic f**kery for people and the stage was in a back room, the bottom floor of this disintegrating bright pink apartment building
I currently live in Nashville and have found an incredibly inclusive and supportive community of musicians and songwriters here
Over the years I’ve shared the stage with some incredible musicians. Here are a few that I have been fortunate to cross paths with:
4x Grammy award-winning Dave Yaden, Bruce Hornsby, Troy Luccketta (Tesla), Danny Gottlieb (Pat Metheny), Michael Staertow (Guess Who), Sarah Jarosz, Ani DiFranco, Randy Brooks (Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer), Todd Smallie (Derek Trucks Band), Carlinhos Rocha (Ricky Martin), Ramaya Soskin, Jeb Bows (Gregory Alan Isakov), Iasaiah “Ikey” Owens (The Mars Volta), Esme Patterson, Daniel Rodriguez (Elephant Revival), Nicole Row (Panic! At The Disco/Incubus), Darwin Johnson (Colbie Caillat/Ben Harper) and many more
I just love all kinds of music and although I am primarily a singer-songwriter-troubadour-type-guy I still work on film music and go to the funk jams and listen to jazz and practice standards in the ‘Real Book’ and play along with Stevie Wonder and John Mayer and Freddie King and get a real kick out of life as a musician and all of the crazy struggles that come with it
TT