Jim Taylor

Jim Taylor

Jim Taylor is a photographer and also the name of several musicians, including a traditional musician from western North Carolina who comes from a musical family. In that family, grandparents, aunts and uncles play ragtime and old-time music and sing shaped-note songs in the Christian Harmony tradition.

Traditional hammered dulcimer player

One Jim Taylor plays and builds hammered dulcimers and has done so since 1981. He wins first place at the Southern Regional Hammered Dulcimer Contest in Mt. View, Arkansas in 1986. He teaches and performs at workshops around the United States, including the Swannanoa Gathering and the Augusta Heritage Center. His musical interests include American dance tunes common in the mid-19th century, as well as Scottish and Irish traditional music.

Recordings and projects

He studies American history and completes an MA in the subject at Western Carolina University. That background informs several recordings, including The Civil War Collection, Volumes 1 & 2 and The Bright Sunny South. His first recording, Come Before Winter, and his later album, One October Morn, combine traditional Celtic music with his own hammered dulcimer compositions. In 1998, he and his wife, Sheila Kay Adams, make the album Christmas on the Mountain, which features old-time tunes, shaped-note hymns and Appalachian ballads.

Other artists with the same name

Other musicians recording as Jim Taylor include an Australian folk singer based in Gippsland, Victoria; a traditional singer from Aberdeenshire and nephew of Tam Reid; and a folk and experimental artist who founds Virtuoso House Records and releases solo material under his own name.