Each inch of pavement has a story to tell
Some I can’t recall, others I remember all too well
This line from Julian Taylor’s autobiographical song “Ballad of a Young Troubadour” hints at the multi-faceted songwriter that he’s grown into throughout his career. We are proud to welcome Julian to Swallow Hill on Saturday, November 2, where he’ll share an evening of music with Crys Matthews.
“We’re somewhere in Alberta,” he said from the road, where we talked with him over the phone as he headed to his next tour stop. “There’s nothing around us, man, we’re just going.”
Now in his third decade as a touring musician, first with the band Staggered Crossing, and more recently as a solo artist, Julian’s latest album, Pathways, continues an unbroken string of critically acclaimed releases.
TICKETS: See Julian Taylor and Crys Matthews at Swallow Hill Music on November 2
In its review of the album, No Depression enthuses “this soft-spoken Canadian might be the best unlicensed therapist you’ll ever encounter, offering empathy and occasional hard truths as he strives to make a difficult world more bearable.”
He is an extremely observant songwriter; one who often builds his songs from the ground up. He’ll take a small detail and pull back from it to speak to a greater truth in cinematic ways.
“(That’s) definitely a natural thing. I don’t necessarily realize that I’m doing that,” he said. “That being said, there is a focus to each and every song that I’ve written.”
A great example of this is on “Sixth Line Road,” a standout track on Pathways.
“That particular song is about racial inequality,” he said. “But it’s directly related to a guy named Herb Carnegie, who was a Black hockey player back in the 1930s and 40s. He didn’t really have a fair shot because of the color of his skin.”
At the start of his professional career, Julian explained, Carnegie “was told he’d never make it because of his skin color and he just sort of felt that that was him being cut off at the knees, so I wanted to talk about that.”
He opens the song by singing:
One of the greatest was cut down at the knees
They said it wasn’t on purpose
It was done deliberately
Each inch of pavement tells a story of grief
Where the black streets divide the land of the free
“I didn’t directly reference him (in the song), but that was the inspiration behind that,” Julian said, which leaves the song more open to interpretation for each listener.
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Julian rewards his fans by sprinkling his songs with references to other artists and songs that they might not pick up on immediately.
“I do love leaving little nuggets in songs, sometimes I’ll even take the title of a song and throw it in just for fun,” he said.
For instance, the easy-going “Love Letters” casually references Vita and Virginia, and Johnny and June. Upon first listen, they may come off merely as names, but after a second or third listen, it starts to sink in that he’s name-checking the fabled love affairs of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, and Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, giving the song a greater weight.
It’s a trick he also employs musically. He memorably opens his tune “100 Proof” by quoting the melody from Elizabeth Cotten’s timeless folk song “Freight Train.” When asked if these folks from bygone times feel like friends to him, he replied “absolutely, they always have.”
He said that music makes “you feel like you know people even though you might not have ever met them. They seep into your pores, and it’s just a beautiful thing to have music in your life.”
Julian, who is of combined Mohawk and Caribbean ancestry, said he’s grateful to have grown up in a house where he was exposed to so much music at a young age so that he could internalize it and ultimately become part of a greater musical conversation.
On songs like “Ballad of a Young Troubadour” or “100 Proof,” he deftly marks the passage of time. It’s something he reflected on as he nears thirty years as a professional musician.
“I’m a little older obviously than when I first started,” he said. “I was twenty years old the first time I was ever on the road, and your perspective on life is vastly different once you’ve gone through a few things.”
“When I wrote songs back then, I hadn’t had enough of a life experience to really go out and tell my own truth. I was just sort of developing it, and now I think that, here we are, you know? Getting to tell my own truth.”
“I don’t know what I’ll be writing about in 25 years,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Who knows?”
We are excited to welcome Julian Taylor to Swallow Hill on Saturday, November 2 with Crys Matthews. Tickets are on-sale now.