Bob Taylor and I playing brothers. And I was a Mexican bandit. And he was the sheriff of the town. And we loved each other. We loved each other very much.
So, I was just a young guy, maybe with an idea, and Cecil Taylor, himself a rebel, would take a chance on a guy like me. It turned out to be a very symbiotic partnership. I learned a lot from him.
And when I met Cecil Taylor it was a complete transformation of musical identities. All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.
I think there are a lot of artists that are very traditional. I think someone can be a fan of someone like Josh Turner and then turn around and be a big fan of someone like Taylor Swift because, at the end of the day, it's all about those songs. I feel like country music has the best songwriting and the best songs of any genre.
My friends are very rich. Elizabeth Taylor sends flowers the size of the bathtub. I'm not kidding.
He's the reason why I write music. If he's reading this - James Taylor, I'd love to work with you! My mom would put headphones on her belly before I was born, so I've been listening to him literally all of my life. When my dad played me 'Walking Man,' I heard those chord changes and that melody, it completely blew me away.
Taylor was named after James Taylor and claims that she knows all the James Taylor songs, and I'm a huge fan of James Taylor and know all his songs, too. My dad told me that if I ever met Taylor Swift, I had to tell her that I know every James Taylor song. We started naming albums, and we were both shouting them out.
When my dad played me 'Walking Man,' I heard those chord changes and that melody, it completely blew me away. Maybe you wouldn't really hear the James Taylor influences in my music, but they're definitely buried in there.
Back in I want to say 2011, Taylor Swift was on her 'Speak Now' tour. She was kind enough to bring me out as one of the openers on that tour. Between her and Miranda Lambert, who also helped me out that year, I got a pretty non-typical first tour as a fellow artist.
I was at Home Depot with my dad looking for paint when I got the call to open for Taylor Swift. That was wild, because I was crying in Home Depot, and people were looking at me funny.
