With the critically acclaimed release of her sophomore album, Kentucky Blue, singer-songwriter Brit Taylor is striding positively into her future. The Kentucky native — with her captivating lyrics and arresting vocals — is stepping boldly ahead with one foot firmly grounded in her Appalachian roots and the other plowing through new ground. It is rewarding, but it hasn’t been easy.
Kentucky Blue, produced by Grammy winners Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson and released in 2023, is a happy, upbeat record that is feisty, funky and pure country and reflective of her life today. Its success — debuting No. 4 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums and climbing to No. 18 on Americana Music’s album chart — follows the success of Brit’s 2021 debut album Real Me and its complement, Real Me Deluxe, which chronicled her self-reflective journey from the depths of despair to honest self-awareness. The highly acclaimed Real Me opened as the highest-ranking debut album on the AMA/CDX Radio Chart at No. 37 and garnered positive reviews from American Songwriter, Rolling Stone, NPR’s World Cafe and others. The 2022 AMERICANAFEST featured her at an official artist showcase, and she headlined The Burl’s 2022 official after-party for Kentucky Rising, an all-star concert in to raise money for East Kentucky flood victims. Taylor’s list of recent live performances includes opening for Dwight Yoakam, Ian Noe, Alabama and Robert Earl Keen and touring in support of both Kelsey Waldon and Blackberry Smoke. PBS featured her on “The Caverns Sessions,” a musical series from deep within a subterranean amphitheater in Tennessee’s Cumberland Mountains. She has released new music with Dee White, Mike and the Moonshines and others. She will tour in support of Brent Cobb this spring.
Born where the famed Country Music Highway 23 slices through Kentucky, life was good for the young singer who spent her childhood years on the Kentucky Opry. Because she was singing before she could read or write, songwriting came later. It took the end of a teenage puppy love to lure her to put pen to paper and words to her emotions. Her first lyrics were born, and her love for songwriting was unleashed. High school graduation was followed by a move to Nashville, a college degree, a music deal, marriage, and a mini-farm. And then it all went bad. A husband gone AWOL, a band that dissolved, a beloved dog that died, a music deal gone sour and a bank that wanted her home made for a winter of despair. After a brief wallow in self-pity, Brit went to work, determined to be true to herself and to make music her way. Tired and broken hearted by the “new Nashville,” she walked away from her song writing deal. Declaring she’d rather “clean toilets than write shitty songs any longer,” Brit cleaned houses to pay the bills, successfully turning her side hustle into a bona-fide small business. At the same time, she served as “general contractor” for her self-financed Real Me, pulling together a cast of professionals to co-write and play with her, all while recording on her own newly created record label, Cut A Shine Records.
Life is good again. She signed a collaborative deal between Cut A Shine Records and Thirty Tigers and a publishing contract with Reservoir and One Riot. Wasserman Music serves as her booking agent. She has a new love and marriage and two new miniature donkeys and a rescue dog added to her zoo of one cat, two dogs, five goats and a bunch of chickens. Today, Brit is bravely standing out as her own self. It isn’t an easy path to navigate, but Brit learned that the best GPS is her inner self. She remains true to the honesty of her lyrics and the timelessness of her sound. The power of her lyrics and her music is that they are refreshingly simple yet surprisingly complex. Always true to herself, Brit Taylor continues to tells stories which manage — whether they are dramatic, humorous or heartfelt — to be downright honest. It is who she is.