Taylor has also been a spectacularly successful professional gambler, as well as a recording artist and producer of such acts as the young James Taylor (no relation) and pop superstar Neil Diamond. He was an integral part of the bustling New York pop songwriting scene in its 1960s Brill Building heyday, one of the pioneers of the progressive country style that was the grandfather of today's alternative country movement, and is today a respected elder statesman of the singer-songwriter scene.

But for Taylor, what's next has always been more important than the past. And with his new release on Lone Star Records, Let's Leave This Town, Taylor creates some of the most exciting and impressive music of his life. Not only is the CD one of his strongest and most assured sets of music in an acclaimed career - his 1973 album Last Chance was hailed in Rolling Stone as one of that year's best - but it also introduces a stunning new talent in fiddler and now singer Carrie Rodriguez.

When Taylor first saw Rodriguez play at the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX in 2001, he was not only wowed by the brilliance he heard in her playing, but also sensed a magical presence. He invited her to join him on some subsequent shows in Texas, and then a tour of Europe. During that tour, he invited Rodriguez, who had never sung lead before, to step up to the microphone and sing. The audiences went wild. Inspired by her way with a song, Taylor teamed up with Rodriguez to create a dynamic duet album. It was cut with folk scene stalwarts John McGann (guitar) and Jim Whitney (upright bass) as well as noted drummer Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention, Richard & Linda Thompson), augmented by Taylor's frequent accompanist John Platania (known for his work with Van Morrison) on guitar as well as string quartets. Mixing superb songcraft with musical and vocal excellence, Let's Leave This Town is a country-folk gem on which the veteran and the newcomer shine together brightly.

Excellence in all endeavors has been a hallmark of Taylor's pursuits since his youth. Born James Wesley Voight, he grew up in Yonkers, NY, the third son of a professional golfer father and schoolteacher mother who encouraged their offspring to follow their dreams. To wit, one brother is acclaimed actor Jon Voight, while his other sibling is a noted geologist who devised the formula to predict the elusive occurrences of volcanic eruptions.

During his youth, Taylor became absorbed with music, especially the country songs he heard on the radio from the clear channel AM station WWVA in Wheeling, WV. As a teen he was a top-ranked competitive golfer and led a local country band, eventually deciding to pursue music full time when a band he was in landed a deal with King Records, becoming the only white act on the influential black music label. But once he started having success landing his songs with publishers, Taylor followed his muse to score hits with songs for The Hollies, Barbara Lewis,"The"Pozo-Seco Singers,"The"American Breed, Billy Vera & Judy Clay and The Clique, along with writing the standards "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning." Jimi Hendrix later adopted "Wild Thing" as one of the showpiece numbers of his live show, and Janis Joplin made Taylor's song "Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)" one of her signature songs.

In the 1970s, Taylor recorded a series of albums for Buddha, Warner Bros., Columbia and Capitol Records that marked him as a progressive country innovator. Though he earned critical acclaim and enjoyed pockets of airplay, the New York-based Taylor found himself continually out of sync with the insular Nashville country music system. Nonetheless, his songs found favor in Music City with artists like Waylon Jennings, Anne Murray, Emmylou Harris and Bobby Bare. Since his teen years, Taylor had also shown a knack for the mathematical intricacies of gambling. Throughout the 1960s and '70s, he pursued gambling as avidly and successfully as he did his songwriting. In the early 1980s, Taylor put aside his musical endeavors to pursue gambling full time. His prowess at blackjack eventually led to him being banned from all the major casinos in Atlantic City and several others in Las Vegas and Europe. Concentrating full time on horse racing, Taylor and his partner Ernie Dahlman were such accomplished thoroughbred handicappers that the Long Island Off Track Betting parlor they frequented gave the team their own room with a private teller and televised race replay system.

Then, in 1995, Taylor's mother became seriously ill. "Instead of going to the racetrack one week, I just spent the time with Mom and played her songs," explains Taylor. "She was always my biggest fan. It was such a wonderful audience for me. She just was so into my songs and my spirit." The experience so rekindled Taylor's passion for music that he decided to give up gambling and return to recording and performing. With the albums Hit Man (1996), The Living Room Tapes (1997), Seven Days in May (1999), The London Sessions Bootleg+ (2000) and Black And Blue America (2001), Taylor was once again reaping critical praise. He also found a burgeoning audience in Europe, where his 1970s albums had made him something of a cult hero. And noted singers and writers like John Prine, Guy Clark and Lucinda Williams gave Taylor's return to music their blessing by singing with him on his albums.

As writer Holly George-Warren said in Rolling Stone, "Las Vegas' loss is our gain." That's because Taylor is one of America's finest songwriters as well as a masterful singer and performer. "If names like Willie Nelson, GuyClark, Kris Kristofferson and Townes Van Zandt mean anything to you, you should make a point of discovering Chip Taylor," urges critic Anthony DeCurtis in CD Now. "Whether you know it or not, he's earned his way into that exalted company."

The emergence of violinist Carrie Luz Rodriguez as a wonderful singer and stunning instrumentalist caps an already long musical journey for a still young woman. Her impressive debut as an artist in her own right with Chip Taylor on Let's Leave This Town follows years of serious musical study of the classics as well jazz, country, folk and more as a violinist and fiddler. As an instrumentalist, Rodriguez has already recorded with Patty Griffin and appeared live with Lyle Lovett and on her own at a Dutch festival and other European shows. And now - much to her surprise, in fact - she also steps forward as an assured and charming vocalist.

Rodriguez was raised in a musical family in Austin, Texas, the daughter of noted Texas singer-songwriter David Rodriguez and a mother who was a classical and opera buff. She took up the violin at age five, studying with Austin teacher Bill Dick until she graduated high school, and playing in orchestras and chamber groups. She earned all region and all state honors as a violinist and concertmaster, eventually winning a scholarship to the prestigious" Oberlin Conservatory of Music. During her high school she also "got a taste" of traditional music fiddling appearing with her father and sitting in with such "people"as Don Walser at Austin clubs.

Finding Oberlin's strict concentration on the classics too narrow for her adventurous musical vision, Rodriguez transferred"to"Berklee College of Music in Boston. She studied there with one of her violin heroes, Matt Glaser, head of Berklee's strings department, while also playing clubs with The Darlings and appearing as a special guest with Lovett at the Orpheum Theater. After graduating Magna Cum Laude from Berklee, Rodriguez recorded a track on Griffin's 1000 Kisses album and played with a country group back in Austin and traveled and played in Europe, developing out of her background her own style of playing that combines traditional styles of fiddleing with more contemporary influences.

In March 2001, Taylor heard Rodriguez play with alternative country artist Hayseed at South By Southwest in Austin and, knocked out by her fiddling, invited her to work with him. On a tour of Europe, he also persuaded

Rodriguez to sing, even though she hadn't thought of herself as a singer. "I don't know how he got me to do it," she recalls with a laugh. "I was a little reluctant." The enthusiastic crowd response to her singing convinced Taylor to collaborate with Rodriguez and record Let's Leave This Town.

"It opens a whole new dimension for me," says Rodriguez of her newfound talent as a singer. And with Let's Leave This Town, listeners are now introduced to an instrumental and vocal artist whose debut only whets the appetite for more.

Albums by artist:
The Trouble With Humans
Let's Leave This Town
Angel of the Morning

Artist's Links:
Chip Taylor talks about his teaming
CD review from the UK
Chip's Tour Dates