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Maria Taylor

Maria Taylor

Maria Diane Taylor (born May 21, 1976) is an American singer/songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama. She is also a member of the duo Azure Ray, with Orenda Fink, and Now It's Overhead, both on Saddle Creek Records. She plays several instruments, including the piano, guitar, and drums.

Before you listen to her new album, Maria Taylor suggests you prepare yourself. Listen to it, she says “in a dark room, with a candle or two with headphones, maybe in the bath, but definitely horizontal.”

Though much of the deliciously diverse "LadyLuck" is inspired by the end of a relationship, it’s not dripping with sadness and grief, nor is it in-your-face empowering. Rather, Taylor strikes a stunning balance between melancholy (aching strings, hushed vocals) and uplifting (rolling rhythms, shimmering keys), highlighted by sharp lyrics that draw optimism out of sadness. This is not a woman down on her luck.

"LadyLuck", Taylor’s third solo effort, is about “personal growth and the change that comes with it,” she says. Much of the album was written as Taylor was preparing for a move (to Los Angeles) and immediately after arriving. “This change in my life was so so needed,” she says, “that, whereas lots of older songs have happy words but a sad undertone, these songs have sad words but with hopeful undertones of renewal.”

Change is something Taylor has welcomed in her career, which started at age 15 in the Birmingham, AL-based band Little Red Rocket. Taylor later became one-half of the dream pop band Azure Ray and left in 2005 to strike out on her own. “I just listen to my gut…always,” she says of the move. “Something said it’s time to try something different.” In 2005 she released the bold and critically-acclaimed solo album 11:11 which featured vocals by Conor Oberst. In 2007 she delivered Lynn Teeter Flower, which showcased her growth as a solo artist, as well as her aptitude for inventive beats and featured Doug Easley (Cat Power, Pavement) and Spoon’s Jim Eno.

On LadyLuck, Taylor changes things again, trading beat-centric tracks for more guitar and vocals (though she does get behind the drums on “It’s Time”). As on previous albums, she works with Now It’s Overhead’s Andy LeMaster as well as new contributor, REM’s Michael Stipe, both of whom collaborated on the album’s final track, “Cartoons and Forever Plans.”

First single “Time Lapse Lifeline,” with its orchestral strings and grand melody, is about how fast life moves and how in a moment everything can change. Appropriately, the song is punctuated by both a driving beat and lingering plaintive vocals, with breaks of near-silence for poignant turns of phrase. “Oh, we dreamed a life / and it was just like that, and just like that it’s gone,” Taylor sings as lone strings fade out.

Intimate, earnest, and complex, "LadyLuck" is Taylor’s most stunning effort to date. Whether you listen to it in the dark or light, with headphones or on the stereo, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, "LadyLuck" will move you to cry, to dance, to sing, and everything in between.

"LadyLuck" was released on March 31, 2009 through Nettwerk. "Time Lapse Lifeline" is available through iTunes.

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Maria Taylor lyrics

No Stars

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 40 times

100,000 Times

By:

Maria Taylor

Viewed 28 times

Orchids

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 23 times

Broad Daylight

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 34 times

A Chance

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 61 times

Along For The Ride

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Maria Taylor

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Matador

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 23 times

In A Bad Way

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 40 times

Masterplan

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 29 times

Xanax

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 14 times

Song Beneath The Song

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 21 times

Clean Getaway

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 6 times

A Good Start

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 10 times

Leap Year

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 8 times

Speak Easy

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 8 times

Xanax

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 17 times

Nature Song

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 8 times

Birmingham 1982

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 10 times

Two of Those Too

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Maria Taylor

Viewed 7 times

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