CALIFORNIA
Capo @ 4 in C/Am
I’m (Am) going back to California
A little place in the San (E) Joaquin
(Am, stepping down A G F# F E)
Where the back pasture builds
To Sierra foothills
And Kaweah tumbles down cool and clean
I’m going back…
Key - G
Texas Water might be the only trio besides The Browns to do this song in the later part of the twentieth century. By Jacque Brel via the Browns.
Here it is by There Browns:
https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+the+browns+three…
You are one of the most beautiful people I know. I love your soul. She was an amazing person too, and, yes, had a beautiful voice. Like Reply3m Active James Michael Taylor Lauryl Blossom Thank you for listening. When we sang together all the troubles of our life were forgotten. I love when people who weren't around back then listen to us sing. Our harmonies were as beautiful to us as they were to our listeners.
Key - G
Texas Water might be the only trio besides The Browns to do this song in the later part of the twentieth century. By Jacque Brel via the Browns.
Here it is by There Browns:
https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+the+browns+three…
I wrote this one lonely afternoon in San Anselmo, California at my friend, Eric's house. Missing Peggy.
NIGHT TIME DREAMS
It's a long way to Texas. Further to Tennessee
I'm out here in California with nobody but me
So, I'm thinkin' about…
My daughter, Wyn, sings
a song I wrote in 1977
while I was doing a gig
at the Ramada Inn in
Laredo.
Harmonies are by her mother,
Barbara Anne Taylor and step
mother, Peggy Ann Mitchell.
The guitar solo and keys are
by my son, Rabyn…
After seeing a quick pick up at the Leather Ball Saloon in Dallas one 1974 evening. This is a song from the album, FEATHERS IN THE WING by Snow Geese/Barbara, Michael Jeffrey and me. 1976
(50 years later, I am stunned at the starkness of this…
The story our song that night (Songwriter night, Tuesday, at The Post, where we would divide up into groups and have a new song ready to perform in one hour) was about railroads and a girl from San Antone. When I got home I had the Tejas/Chaos…
The story our song that night (Songwriter night, Tuesday, at The Post)
was about railroads and a girl from San Antone. I had the Tejas/Chaos rhyme and when I rhymed "confetti" with Texas City, I had the local. Once I saw her on that shrimp boat it wrote itself.
The story our song that night (Songwriter night, Tuesday, at The Post, where we would divide up into groups and have a new song ready to perform in one hour) was about railroads and a girl from San Antone. When I got home I had the Tejas/Chaos…
SOMETHING ABOUT THE NIGHT TIME - no Capo or Capo @ 4
(Am)Something about the (Bm)night time makes me feel alive
Makes me want to sing a song. Think about my life
(C)Maybe light a (D)candle. I like lemon grass
(Am)Something about the (Bm…
LANCASTER STREET
Midnight in Cowtown. 90 degrees
Too hot for a blanket. Too hot for a sheet
The trash on the sidewalk is trying to sleep
Breathing the bus fumes on Lancaster Street
Sunshine brings tacos. Sunshine brings beans.
Sunshine…
Connie Pittman Ramsey
Jesus, James! Brilliant. Powerful. Heart-wrenching. Thank you. I had not heard this album!!! I will have to listen later, but thank you, thank you for sharing this one! We should be ashamed. I know I am.
I never sing this song the same two times in a row.
The lyric below is pretty close to how I sing it now.
Listening again, this is an awful version of this song...
I have my recording machine working again...I must redo this.
I PLAY C…
One day as I was turning into my driveway I saw Rita on her porch. She's a lot like me.
AL & RITA Capo @2 in C
C stepping down to F
Al was a smoker. He's dead now, of course
Al has Alzheimer's. Alcohol made it worse
D stepping down…
Randy Brown and I did a little co-write this evening and this is what we came up with...
I MISTOOK IT FOR THE MOON Capo @ 2 Key D (Play in C positions)
I was coasting across West Texas/Had my top down, it was late at night
I caught a coyote…
As for the song, you did a nice job of imagery and I wasn't sure what was really happening. I'm used to the stories being biographical and the "and then he died" threw me a little. I don't think it flows off the tongue like some of your others, but I like it. - Lee Snaples
Randy Brown and I did a little co-write this evening and this is what we came up with...
I MISTOOK IT FOR THE MOON Capo @ 2 Key D (Play in C positions)
I was coasting across West Texas/Had my top down, it was late at night
I caught a coyote…
I just listened to your ' I mistook it for the moon' I wanted to comment and lost the post so I'm commenting g here. You are such an amazing writer. Karen Lee
Randy Brown and I did a little co-write this evening and this is what we came up with...
I MISTOOK IT FOR THE MOON Capo @ 2 Key D (Play in C positions)
I was coasting across West Texas/Had my top down, it was late at night
I caught a coyote…
Randy Brown and I did a little co-write this evening and this is what we came up with...
I MISTOOK IT FOR THE MOON Capo @ 2 Key D (Play in C positions)
I was coasting across West Texas/Had my top down, it was late at night
I caught a coyote…
Randy Brown and I did a little co-write this evening and this is what we came up with...
I MISTOOK IT FOR THE MOON Capo @ 2 Key D (Play in C positions)
I was coasting across West Texas/Had my top down, it was late at night
I caught a coyote…
Thanks for the great comments. It would be fun to spend an evening playing music with you in one of those "Cow Town" bars.
You asked about my musical friends, we all live in the Minneapolis area, maybe within a 20 mile circle. Covid disrupted our activities a lot, and then we all seemed to have major disruptions in our life.
My mother, for example, was on hospice most of last year and passed away at 93 years last fall. We are all coming out of the fog now and trying to get back to music. Tomorrow, Mark Lofgren, and I are meeting at Colleen Dillon's house for an afternoon of writing songs. With any luck we'll be posting something on Alonetone this week.
I volunteer at Presbyterian Homes where my mother was and yesterday we had a little impromptu concert. I played guitar along with the Activity director and one of the memory care residents. Take a listen:
https://mnsongwriters.org/members/greg-connor/mediapress/special-events/rosiebrucegreg/
Let's hope we all get much more active writing and recording this winter.
SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN
My mom’s dad was a coal miner. Her mother died of TB when she was a kid. When she was twelve, her dad, dying of black lung, slit his throat with a butcher knife. That left her with a cripple little brother to take care of…
Peggy taught me an Eagles song toward the end off our life together. I think it was NEW BOY IN TOWN. (I had no idea what she was telling me.) I took the chord progression from that song and wrote this. Peggy said that was cheating.
WATERMELON…
OH JIMMY
capo @ 4 or 5 live
C Am F G
On page thirty of the yearbook he found a picture sweet
A girl named Marie Angel, in school right down the street
Dm walk down G
He didn’t notice…
Yes, it is obvious to anyone who actually listens to follow the story. The killer line ... the picture that finishes breaking what's left of the listener's heart is "but Jimmy bought the yearbook, and he hold it now and then". Lazarus Knight
capo @ 4 Am - 3/4 time (starts on A)
Am G Am G Am
Last night I said Good bye to Rose but long ago I learned.
The things that last we seldom know and think a bridge is burned.
Bb…
brush up on "Lest night I said goodbye to Rose" I know that's not exactly the title, but I think many people would like that song like I do. Lazareth Knight
OH JIMMY
capo @ 4 or 5 live
C Am F G
On page thirty of the yearbook he found a picture sweet
A girl named Marie Angel, in school right down the street
Dm walk down G
He didn’t notice…
SLAUGHTER MOUNTAIN
My mom’s dad was a coal miner. Her mother died of TB when she was a kid. When she was twelve, her dad, dying of black lung, slit his throat with a butcher knife. That left her with a cripple little brother to take care of…
COWTOWN
In a court yard down the alley
There's a grave yard, weeds and litter
Memories, undisturbed, await their doom
Beneath the glitter of COWTOWN
You take a building, old and crooked
Long ago the life forsook it
Paint it up and name…
I was talking about the Wight Hotel, directly across the street from The White Elephant. The things you mention were going on when The Beer Garden 1st took over that rat hole between the Elephant and the steak house.
Tim Tandy said, "I enjoy the "play like" aspect of the Stockyards District today, but I KNOW what was real and what wasn't. When I grew up in East Fort Worth in the 50's thru the 70's, the Stockyards were a working affair. Everyone downwind got…
Tim Tandy
This one really grabs me, Jim. I enjoy the "play like" aspect of the Stockyards District today, but I KNOW what was real and what wasn't. When I grew up in East Fort Worth in the 50's thru the 70's, the Stockyards were a working affair. Everyone downwind got the dust and rancid odors that were a mixture of cattle manure, blood and guts, and rendered fat. Get up close, and you added in the panicked sounds of cattle going up the ramps to slaughter. The buildings along E and W Exchange were mostly delapidated flop-houses, and I recall there were usually destitute men in soiled undershirts leaning out the upstairs windows smoking cigarettes and taking it all in. When the slaughterhouses shut down and the development folks took over, they neatly "packed up" the ambience of the historical "Hell's Half Acre" - gambling halls, saloons, cheap hotels, bordello's and the site of gunfights such as the famous Luke Short/Jim Courtright affair - which had been razed in the 60's and replaced with the Water Gardens and Convention Center as an act of "urban renewal", and "relocated" them to the Stockyards. I really don't object to all of it, but just wish they were a bit more open about what's shit and what's Shinola, ya know? All the tourists crowd E Exhange at the appointed hour and hoot and holler and excitedly REAL Wild West every day when the "cattle drive" occurs. Oh, well, as Bruce Willis' character in "Die Hard" liked to say, "Yippi-ki-yay, MF!"
When this happened I couldn't get home before I had the song half written. What a lonely feeling.
NOBODY KNOW ME IN TOWN ANY MORE Key of G
G Em
There’s a bird in the gutter that…
Sad, and that was 11 years ago. How does it feel now ... like more of the same? It seems to me like your not just accepted but held in high esteem at the places where I've seen you perform. Lazarus Knight
The lyrics of this song,
as they pertain to plot,
are my exact memory of the event.
I had spoken to the kid maybe a minute before the "action" started about how the pressure of the water was very strong. He was nestled down with his back…
Terry Rasor
I remember those daze Michael, y’all were awesome and I’m glad and proud to have known you all and have you at my Raz On The Braz festival so many years ago! Love ya my friend!
Roland Brown
Sorry to hear about Barbara. Texas Water was as good as you say. I’m thinking about adding “I’ll Be Glad to Let You Love Me” to our band’s set list.
THE DUST ON THE PIANO
Capo at 2 in Dm
Dm C (2) or Em D
He used to play piano because it made her smile
Dm C (2)
She could be in any room. He'd sit and play a while
F C Bb (G)Dm or G D C Em
He didn't need to see her. He knew she loved…
THE DUST ON THE PIANO
Capo at 2 in Dm
Dm C (2) or Em D
He used to play piano because it made her smile
Dm C (2)
She could be in any room. He'd sit and play a while
F C Bb (G)Dm or G D C Em
He didn't need to see her. He knew she loved…
THE DUST ON THE PIANO
Capo at 2 in Dm
Dm C (2) or Em D
He used to play piano because it made her smile
Dm C (2)
She could be in any room. He'd sit and play a while
F C Bb (G)Dm or G D C Em
He didn't need to see her. He knew she loved…
THE DUST ON THE PIANO
Capo at 2 in Dm
Dm C (2) or Em D
He used to play piano because it made her smile
Dm C (2)
She could be in any room. He'd sit and play a while
F C Bb (G)Dm or G D C Em
He didn't need to see her. He knew she loved…
THE INAPPROPRIATE QUESTION - Capo @ 2 (6) to sing
G C/G bass
She said, “I can see that you’re hurting,
And I can see that you are wearing a ring.
Perhaps an inappropriate question,
but I’d like to ask you something.
Soon I will be a…
THE COUCH - key - C live - Capo @ 4
https://fb.watch/lIEUn31mBZ/
https://www.facebook.com/100054814402634/videos/2856132984527543/
1-C 4-F
Today we put the couch out by the…
Gwyn -Verrrrry nice! PS: I listened to the "shorts" you sent me while sitting in the car waiting for Greg to pick up some groceries. I think you have invented a new artform with these shorts: Haiku Songs! I really loved them. I laughed a lot, and that's a compliment!
NOWHERE - Key of G
James Michael Taylor
1. Maybe I misunderstood G
Maybe I was wrong C
But I thot you loved me D
You stayed so long G
2. Maybe I missed something…
Here is the latest song challenge offered by the Minnesota Asscociation of Songwriters:
. . . . . . . .
Your mission this month is twofold:
1. Try creating a boundary between the production of content versus the judging…
Here is the latest song challenge offered by the Minnesota Asscociation of Songwriters:
. . . . . . . .
Your mission this month is twofold:
1. Try creating a boundary between the production of content versus the judging…
Those guitar tracks are crisper than fresh celery. Great vocal. Really brings the lyric to life. This is the best thing I have ever heard of yours. Killer. Great song.
Comments on James Michael Taylor's stuff
Robert White Thanks James! I just sang that song with you! Easy Tune to Learn "California 3"
OH MY GOSH!!! That's really special!!! Isabelle Massimo
You are one of the most beautiful people I know. I love your soul. She was an amazing person too, and, yes, had a beautiful voice. Like Reply3m Active James Michael Taylor Lauryl Blossom Thank you for listening. When we sang together all the troubles of our life were forgotten. I love when people who weren't around back then listen to us sing. Our harmonies were as beautiful to us as they were to our listeners.
Lane Beauvais That's great! I was pleasantly surprised by the stealth modulation at the end!
Leslie Young James Michael Taylor Beautiful. I love the ladies that sound like bells.
Leslie Young James Michael Taylor Beautiful
Deanie Hamilton Berry James Michael Taylor, that was great and you may be right.
Fabulous James - Keith Hass
The story our song that night (Songwriter night, Tuesday, at The Post) was about railroads and a girl from San Antone. I had the Tejas/Chaos rhyme and when I rhymed "confetti" with Texas City, I had the local. Once I saw her on that shrimp boat it wrote itself.
Classic! — Wade Jackson
Lovely piece James. Nicely done. — Wade Jackson
Connie Pittman Ramsey Jesus, James! Brilliant. Powerful. Heart-wrenching. Thank you. I had not heard this album!!! I will have to listen later, but thank you, thank you for sharing this one! We should be ashamed. I know I am.
Stefan Prigmore James Michael Taylor thank YOU for writing such a powerful song and for letting me sing it
https://www.facebook.com/richard.vannoy.77/videos/1278352819609892/ Violet's Al & Rita live...
As for the song, you did a nice job of imagery and I wasn't sure what was really happening. I'm used to the stories being biographical and the "and then he died" threw me a little. I don't think it flows off the tongue like some of your others, but I like it. - Lee Snaples
I just listened to your ' I mistook it for the moon' I wanted to comment and lost the post so I'm commenting g here. You are such an amazing writer. Karen Lee
Steve Satterwhite this. is. great.
hownice…really
Lazarus Knight I don't quite understand what happened, but that doesn't diminish my appreciation of this song.
Thanks for the great comments. It would be fun to spend an evening playing music with you in one of those "Cow Town" bars. You asked about my musical friends, we all live in the Minneapolis area, maybe within a 20 mile circle. Covid disrupted our activities a lot, and then we all seemed to have major disruptions in our life. My mother, for example, was on hospice most of last year and passed away at 93 years last fall. We are all coming out of the fog now and trying to get back to music. Tomorrow, Mark Lofgren, and I are meeting at Colleen Dillon's house for an afternoon of writing songs. With any luck we'll be posting something on Alonetone this week. I volunteer at Presbyterian Homes where my mother was and yesterday we had a little impromptu concert. I played guitar along with the Activity director and one of the memory care residents. Take a listen: https://mnsongwriters.org/members/greg-connor/mediapress/special-events/rosiebrucegreg/ Let's hope we all get much more active writing and recording this winter.
Comments made by James Michael Taylor
Rose Jeffus - I agree. (with Lane. "I declare this album your #1 compilation."
Watermelon Wind is a good one too. Really inspiring images Lazarus Knight
Yes, it is obvious to anyone who actually listens to follow the story. The killer line ... the picture that finishes breaking what's left of the listener's heart is "but Jimmy bought the yearbook, and he hold it now and then". Lazarus Knight
brush up on "Lest night I said goodbye to Rose" I know that's not exactly the title, but I think many people would like that song like I do. Lazareth Knight
Oh Jimmy rings of a certain kind of pain that you've captured perfectly. Lazarath Knight.
Lane Beauvais By the power invested in me, I declare this album your #1 compilation.
I was talking about the Wight Hotel, directly across the street from The White Elephant. The things you mention were going on when The Beer Garden 1st took over that rat hole between the Elephant and the steak house.
Tim Tandy This one really grabs me, Jim. I enjoy the "play like" aspect of the Stockyards District today, but I KNOW what was real and what wasn't. When I grew up in East Fort Worth in the 50's thru the 70's, the Stockyards were a working affair. Everyone downwind got the dust and rancid odors that were a mixture of cattle manure, blood and guts, and rendered fat. Get up close, and you added in the panicked sounds of cattle going up the ramps to slaughter. The buildings along E and W Exchange were mostly delapidated flop-houses, and I recall there were usually destitute men in soiled undershirts leaning out the upstairs windows smoking cigarettes and taking it all in. When the slaughterhouses shut down and the development folks took over, they neatly "packed up" the ambience of the historical "Hell's Half Acre" - gambling halls, saloons, cheap hotels, bordello's and the site of gunfights such as the famous Luke Short/Jim Courtright affair - which had been razed in the 60's and replaced with the Water Gardens and Convention Center as an act of "urban renewal", and "relocated" them to the Stockyards. I really don't object to all of it, but just wish they were a bit more open about what's shit and what's Shinola, ya know? All the tourists crowd E Exhange at the appointed hour and hoot and holler and excitedly REAL Wild West every day when the "cattle drive" occurs. Oh, well, as Bruce Willis' character in "Die Hard" liked to say, "Yippi-ki-yay, MF!"
Sad, and that was 11 years ago. How does it feel now ... like more of the same? It seems to me like your not just accepted but held in high esteem at the places where I've seen you perform. Lazarus Knight
Terry Rasor I remember those daze Michael, y’all were awesome and I’m glad and proud to have known you all and have you at my Raz On The Braz festival so many years ago! Love ya my friend!
Roland Brown Sorry to hear about Barbara. Texas Water was as good as you say. I’m thinking about adding “I’ll Be Glad to Let You Love Me” to our band’s set list.
Joe Brunelle - I like this, Jim
Lazarus Knight That's a really good song. It resonates with truth.
Tim Tandy Brilliantly haunting! Like a character in a Hank Williams song, you're telling a poignant, sad story, but NOT seeking pity.
"Wow, beautiful." Ken McIntyre
I like that a lot. Its a fresh perspective. Lazareth Knight
Gwyn -Verrrrry nice! PS: I listened to the "shorts" you sent me while sitting in the car waiting for Greg to pick up some groceries. I think you have invented a new artform with these shorts: Haiku Songs! I really loved them. I laughed a lot, and that's a compliment!
Laurie Callinan ...beautiful heartbreaking song.
I thot I sent you a response... Can't see it now.
Those guitar tracks are crisper than fresh celery. Great vocal. Really brings the lyric to life. This is the best thing I have ever heard of yours. Killer. Great song.