Music, just like sports, is mostly a young man’s game. Most certainly there are wily veterans out there taking the field and taking the stage, but many of them made their name when they were young. It’s hard to hold onto the dream of making the big time the older you get, whether you’re trying to strike out opposing batters, or sing on the stage to strangers.
The wait is nearly over, and the emergence of one of our generation’s most talented songwriters draws near as Oakdale, California’s Willy Tea Taylor readies the release of his debut album called “Knuckleball Prime.” The thought with Willy has always been that he is a gem waiting to be discovered, and Blackwing’s support may be what delivers Willy Tea to the wider audience his songs deserve.
What do pencils and music have in common? Apparently a lot more than it would appear on the surface. And Palomino, the company responsible for bringing the legendary Blackwing Pencil back from the dead has now launched a music wing and record label, signing Willy “Tea” Taylor, noted songwriter, co-frontman of the Oakdale, CA-based Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit.
If you asked me point blank who I thought was the best songwriter of our generation regardless of genre, scene, commercial or critical success, I would tell you without hesitation that it is Willy “Tea” Taylor from the interior valley cattle town of Oakdale, CA. Willy “Tea” Taylor is an enigma, while at the same time being the most down-to-earth person you would ever meet.
There are songwriters, and then there are songwriters; those folks that so effortlessly set words to the moods and moments of life and that can make you weep like a baby or wildly happy to be alive. These songwriters are there for us, creating a soundtrack for our most enduring memories, making the most of the life experience by enhancing it with music.
The artists worth your time are so often aloof when it comes to self-promotion, so the music will never just fall into your lap. You have to work for it. You have to seek it out, or it must seek you out, and in many respects this imparts an even greater value to it than the already elevated value of the music itself compared to the music you encounter inadvertently through most popular media.
If you’re a tragic, tragic audiofile like myself, then you understand just what a blessing it is when out of the blue you discover an artist that really speaks to you, and it opens a brand new vein of music for you to enjoy for years to come. This is the experience most people come away with when hearing Willy Tea Taylor for the first time.