Walden Coffeehouse Presents Eric Taylor August 17, 2007

To reserve your seat, just reply to this email or call 210-872-6093. (Reservations aren't required-just easier on our planning!)

$10 per person

Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Concert begins at 7:30 p.m.

Coffee and dessert will be served at intermission. AGUA (Acquifer Gaurdians in Urban Areas) will receive 25% of the proceeds this month's concert.

Butch Morgan will open, beginning at 7:30.

HOW TO GET HERE
We are located in San Antonio, TX at the First Unitarian Universalist Church (7150 IH-10 West) on the access road on the Southeast corner of the intersection of IH10 and Loop 410. We are currently experiencing a lot of highway construction. Please check the latest driving directions below.

· From downtown, take IH10 West, and get off at the Park Ten exit. Stay on the access road past the Shell gas station. The church parking lot is at the top of the hill on the right.

· From the north part of the city, take IH10 East towards downtown and take the Crossroads Blvd exit. When you get to Crossroads Blvd. turn left under the highway and turn left again on to the access road that leads you up the hill to the church.

· From 410 Westbound, get on IH10 East towards downtown San Antonio Take the very first exit, it will be,Vance Jackson exit. Use the turnaround to get you on the access road and go back the other way. Continue on the access road past Crossroads. The church parking lot is at the top of the hill on the right.

· From 410 Eastbound, take the Fredericksburg Exit, stay on that access road across Fredericksburg Rd. and around the side of Crossroads Mall. When you get to Crossroads Blvd. turn left under the highway and turn left again on to the access road that leads you up the hill to the church.

Eric Taylor

"Like Taylor at his best in concert, The Great Divide is sparse, concise and direct. No wonder it hits the bull's-eye. This is what being a Texas singer-songwriter is all about."

- William Michael Smith, Houston Press

Eric Taylor is a sage musician, a lyrical genius and a master of the guitar. If you're familiar with the intricate Texas singer/ songwriter jigsaw puzzle, you probably already know a lot about Taylor. If you're not familiar with Taylor by name, you've probably heard his songs performed by people such as Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett. He has created a multitude of fans and devotees that are legends themselves in the singer/songwriter realm, artists who have long considered Taylor to be a teacher and a lantern bearer whose time is long overdue.

Taylor grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and started playing soul music in his early years, steeping himself in the rich cultural heritage of the black South. "I've written poetry all my life," Taylor recounts. "When I learned how to play guitar, it was a natural progression to write songs." After high school, a brief stint at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, just "didn't work out," according to Taylor.

"Music lured me away," says Taylor. "I thought I'd make my way to California like everybody else back then but I ran out of money and ended up in Houston." It's a good thing he never made it to California, because the musical environment in Houston during the '70s was just what Taylor needed to inspire him.

Taylor learned intricate blues guitar stylings from music legends Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb and Mississippi Fred McDowell while working at the Family Hand club. Later, he developed his own unique guitar picking style, that would be imitated by many of his contemporaries from the early Houston days, such as Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, and Nanci Griffith. "There were no lines drawn in the sand between musical genres in Houston back in those days," Taylor remembers. "You were just a musician. I believe so many great writers came out of that scene because you could learn from others. Isn't that the point of this whole thing?"

In 1977 Taylor was a winner of the "New Folk" competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Shameless Love, his first album, came out in 1981, and after a hiatus of almost 14 years, he returned with the self-titled Eric Taylor, released in 1995. His eponymous release was chosen as the 1996 Kerrville Folk Festival Album of the Year. Three years later he released Resurrect, and it was subsequently named one of the "100 essential records of all time" by Buddy magazine. Taylor has headlined the prestigious Newport Folk Festival, played National Public Radio's "Mountain Stage" and has appeared on both "Late Night With David Letterman" with Nanci Griffith and "Austin City Limits" with Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, and Robert Earl Keen.

"To say that Eric Taylor is one of the finest writers of our time, would be an understatement," Nanci Griffith says. "If you miss an opportunity to hear Eric Taylor, you have missed a chance to hear a voice I consider the William Faulkner of songwriting in our current time." Griffith has recorded several of Taylor's songs, including "Deadwood," "Storms," "Dollar Matinee" and "Ghost in the Music," which they wrote together. Lyle Lovett, who recorded Taylor's "Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning," and with whom Taylor co-wrote the immensely popular "Fat Babies," compares Taylor's narrative voice to that of Bruce Springsteen. Iain Matthews claims, "Once you become a Taylor fanatic, it gives one immense joy and pride to be able to enlighten others to the man's work."

2001 brought forth Scuffletown, and shortly following its release, Taylor was a featured artist on "Austin City Limit's" and NPR's "Morning Edition." The Kerrville Tapes (2003) is his first live album, recorded during three years of appearances at the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival.

In 2004, heeding repeated requests by fans and media, Taylor re-mastered the vinyl Shameless Love and reissued it as a CD with 2 never-released-before bonus tracks.

2006 will introduce The Great Divide, a powerful, brilliant work that is both timely and timeless. Recorded at Rock Romano's Red Shack in Houston, TX, between April and July 2005, the album includes several new songs, some older songs, and 2 songs by a couple of Eric's early music mentors (Arthur Jackson, aka Peg Leg Sam, and Townes Van Zandt).

A mesmerizing performer, Taylor has toured extensively in the United States and Europe, playing notable venues such as Club Passim, The Bottom Line, The Bluebird Cafe, Eddie's Attic, The Ark, CSPS, Cafe Carpe, Paradiso (Amsterdam), Theatre Kikker (Utrecht), The Real Music Club (Belfast), Hotel du Nord (Paris), Grey's Pub (Brighton), and The Bein Inn (Perth). Festival appearances include Kerrville, Newport Folk Festival, Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Take Root (The Netherlands), and Roots of Heaven Festival (The Netherlands).

He has taught at the Kerrville Song School, and has conducted songwriting workshops at the Fulston Manor Performing Arts Centre (Sittingbourne, England), CARAD (Rhayader, Wales), and the Plowshares Coffeehouse (Pennsylvania).

"[Eric's] beautiful new album The Great Divide is as vividly intense as any he's ever written."

- Sue Atkinson, Nottingham Evening Post (UK)

Please join us for an enjoyable evening of wonderful music by this amazing artist as we celebrate and support this wondrous peace mission undertaken by a member of our own community. Complimentary coffee and desserts will be available during the show.

Official Website: http://www.waldencoffeehouse.org