Tony Taylor Born 25 January 1949 - Leicester. First musical memory - Sparky's Magic Piano on Uncle Mac on the BBC Light Programme. Then Elvis exploded. Rock n Roll and 50's music hit him and he's never recovered. Both his brothers and his father were very musical but Tony never bothered to learn an instrument until he was 18 when he bought a guitar and immediately started writing songs. He was heavily influenced by Tim Hardin and his favourites band - The Byrds.

His ambition was to be a film director and after a stint in the Merchant Navy he moved to London in 1967 to break into the film business. He got a job with ITN's News at Ten when it first started and then moved on to the National Coal Board Film Unit, which was great training ground for film technicians. Tony became an assistant director / cameraman. He left the Coal Board Film Unit to make his own documentaries. The first project he had in mind was, of course, a film on The Byrds.

Before doing that he decided to work on a banana boat to get to the Caribbean. In the Caribbean he became a beach bum. He then worked crewing a yacht which took him to Long Island. Looking for more yacht work he travelled to Miami. After arriving in Miami he had a sudden realisation; "Hey, I'm in the USA....home of The Byrds" so he caught a Greyhound bus and three days later he was in Los Angeles. And to cut a long (and amazing ) story very short he made a short promotional movie on the Byrds on tour in Holland in May 1971 which was used at CBS conventions.

Seeing such a great band at close quarters inspired Tony to get on with his own music. After several years during which he formed and played in a number of bands and touted his songs around record and publishing companies he formed his first serious band, Captain Video, who performed Tony's own songs. He also started to teach himself the 5-string banjo Scruggs style.

E M I Music signed him as a writer and got him a one-year record deal with EMI / Harvest. The company didn't want the rest of the band members which did not go down too well with them. E M I put Tony in the Who's studio in Battersea to do three songs with session players. The session was produced by Charlie Whitney (ex Family and Streetwalkers). The result - She's not too young to be nasty / Telescope on a star was released on 5 November 1976. It received good reviews and reached 19 in the Time Out chart, but didn't sell many copies in the UK. However it became a cult record in Paris.

C'est la vie.

Tony's follow-up single Sweetheart / Play that steel guitar crept out the following year and vanished. Tony was dropped by E M I on 17 August 1977, the day after Elvis died. Punk was just beginning to rage through the music scene and singer / songwriters were no longer flavour of the month.

Undeterred, Tony kept writing and singing and singing and gigging and letting it all out. Some interesting covers of his songs were issued in distant countries and he kept working with Charlie Whitney in the studio and gigging together as a duo. In 1978 Tony teamed up with Ric Grech (ex Family / Blind Faith / Traffic / Gram Parsons) and Claire Hamill to form a Gram Parsons / Emmylou Harris type Country band. Ric had produced Gram Parson's first solo album and was keen to go country. They did a few top gigs in London clubs, they then hit the provinces but things went a bit off the rails and the tour collapsed.

Tony carried on performing live with the banjo and guitar, often with Charlie Whitney, playing the bars in southern Spain. The called themselves "The Racketeeros" which, translated, is" the Racket Boys" (honest!). They eventually made a CD in 1967 which is still available folks - click here if you want to buy it.

In 1986 Tony and his family moved to Cornwall where he got involved in the local music scene and formed The Blues Bandits who continue to rock. He also teamed up with Sue White to form the wholly inappropriately named "The Tone Defs." Tony and Sue have toured extensively throughout England and Germany and continue to perform as a duo singing folk, rock, country, and whatever takes their fancy. Tony features on Sue White's CD Best of Cornnish Folk Songs Vols. I and II playing Banjo, 12 string Rickenbacker Guitar, Acoustic Guitar and Bass.

Back in the 80s Sue played with Martin Frith, a fine fiddler, and together with Tony they now perform as the Goonhillies playing a mix of Cornish, Scottish, Irish and Breton songs and music as well as bluegrass and a touch of country blues; a rich and eclectic range of great music and songs.

So its been a long and winding road for Tony and it looks like it will continue as long as the creek don't rise.

Tony still carries his dream with him....you'll have to ask him precisely what it is!

He loves great songs; great singers; the Marx Brothers; Elvis; Tim Hardin; the Byrds; The Good the bad and the Ugly; bluegrass sung hot and high and lonesome; drink (goes with the job); Leicester City Football Club; Ennio Morricone's music; the sea; women; and Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones. Tony has a hidden treasure of his own songs which have yet to receive the recognition they deserve......I suppose that's part of the dream.