Willy Tea Taylor’s flight from Nashville was delayed. It’s now 8pm and we’re talking on the phone as his dad drives him from the Sacramento airport to his home in Oakdale, California. He’s playing a wedding in Yosemite before spending the rest of the next month crisscrossing these United States, followed by an extensive UK tour later this summer.
Whether a vagabond troubadour by his lonesome or joined by some of his oldest musical mates, Taylor’s road-worn lifestyle is all about finding fellowship along the way. The rotating cast of characters he plays and records with are colloquially known as The Fellership.
He’s a modern-day Frodo Baggins — albeit a bit bigger than the diminutive hobbit.
“It’s very ‘Lord of the Rings’-y when you tour, you know?” Taylor explains. “And when you all start meeting up, it just becomes this mojo, this magic that we all long for. The energy’s on this level of: Let’s go! So it’s exciting.”
Wearing overalls and sunglasses, oft donning a wide-brimmed hat, Taylor sings vivid stories from behind a bramble of bushy red beard, strumming a custom four-string acoustic tenor guitar (aptly called the “Model Tea”). When he hits Bend’s Silver Moon Brewing on Monday, May 20, he’ll be joined by longtime accomplices Dylan Nicholson and Eric Patterson of The Turkey Buzzards. The folk-country duo, “two of my best friends in the whole world,” Taylor says, will open the show as well as support Taylor during his set.
The Fellership takes many forms, and on Taylor’s latest record, “The Great Western Hangover,” it’s a who’s who of talented Northwest players including Taylor Kingman, Lewi Longmire, Kris Stuart of Root Jack and Fruition’s Tyler Thompson.
“I think The Fellership is a group of like-minded people that are going for a similar enjoyment of life,” Taylor chuckles. “It flows really smoothly because I believe we all are in that mindset, and it’s just kind of a flawless fun.”
“The Great Western Hangover” is 10 magnificently rich stories that pay tribute to a nomadic way of life, his wild friends, the feel-good rock of his youth and times and places you’d rather forget. Additional guests include Anna Tivel, Jeffrey Martin, Jay Cobb Anderson of Fruition and Rainbow Girls providing their talents. Recorded by Taylor, Tyler Thompson and Taylor Kingman at “Taylor’s old house,” dubbed Our Lady of Perpetual Heat Recording Studio & Spa, in St. Paul, Oregon, The Fellership laid down 11 songs in two days.
“It’s just all live, there’s no tracking,” Taylor tells. “And that really was something I’ve been wanting to do.”
The tightness of the players’ collective spirits gives the album a raw realness. It exudes authenticity as it traverses from John Prine to Tom Petty to Bryan Adams on “’69 Malibu,” Taylor’s unabashed “’80s summer power hit.”
“Making this album might’ve been the most organic and effortless recording session I’ve ever done,” Thompson explains. “Willy trusted us. I don’t ever remember him telling us what to play on our instruments or how to make it sound. It was almost as if we were all just jamming in a living room, not worrying about things being perfect.”
“It’s got its funny little quirks,” Taylor adds. There were moments where “you can just tell that wasn’t the optimal note to hit right there but that’s the one that’s there and it lives there forever. I like that.”
As The Fellership expands and contracts depending on the date and locale, some shows will feature Taylor’s son on drums, while on others he’ll share the bill with The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, “my band in California,” that’s been together for 20 years.
“I started on the road with Larry and His Flask; they’re legendary Bend/Redmond, Oregon, troubadours that just showed me many of these states on a low budget,” Taylor tells. “Kinda gave me my walking shoes, I guess, because I sure like traveling.”
“I grew up as a baseball player, you know, I like to have a team,” he says. “Just something that makes sense to me.”
This sense of community extends to his audiences, too. “When the crowd becomes The Bait and Tackle Choir, they kind of really do lose themselves,” he says. “And there’s this moment that’s just a powerful kind of healing moment, you know, like church. And so, I’m not afraid to ask people to sing and join the choir. You know what I mean? Because there’s some power to it.”
Feeding off this warmth and connectivity, Taylor trusts in his community both on and off stage. “Getting in tune with each other, you know, that’s a crazy important thing,” he says. “That’s why choirs are so fun.”
Join the chorus this Monday at Silver Moon.
This article appears in Source Weekly May 16, 2024.
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