Joanne Shaw Taylor

Spotted by Dave Stewart when she was just 16, Joanne Shaw Taylor started cranking out raw, squealing guitar licks in the early 2000s, firmly establishing her as one of the British blues rock scene's brightest stars. Growing up in the West Midlands, her father and older brother were both guitar fanatics and Joanne first took classical lessons when she was eight, before later discovering her dad's Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins albums, inspired to turn to the electric guitar at the age of 13. Her mother's Motown and Northern Soul records were an inspiration, too, and shortly after completing her GCSEs she was playing at a breast cancer fundraising event when a friend of Dave Stewart of Eurythmics saw her, became a fan and ended up passing on a demo recording of hers. It led to her touring Europe with Stewart's supergroup D.U.P. in 2002, but she was forced to slog away on the blues circuit for years after the record company she was signed to went bankrupt, before finally releasing her debut album 'White Sugar' in 2009. She also grafted her way around the US with subsequent releases 'Diamonds in the Dirt' and 'Almost Always Never', and was part of Annie Lennox's backing band who performed live at Buckingham Palace during Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. Her live record 'Songs from the Road' captured the raucous howling sound of her Telecaster and her trio's ferocious R&B grooves, but another more soulful side came through when she recorded her first UK top ten album 'Wild' at the legendary Grand Victor studio in Nashville with acclaimed producer Kevin Shirley in 2016. She also moved to Detroit, opened for blues rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa and supported Foreigner at the Royal Albert Hall before landing a major deal with Sony and returning in 2019 with 'Reckless Heart'.

Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.