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Larry Taylor Hill

Photo by James Fraher

Blues & Soul

There was music in the house at 1131 S. Mozart during the heyday of Chicago blues. Guitarist Eddie Taylor lived there with his wife, Vera Hill, a singer from a musically gifted family, and it was there they raised Larry, Vera Hill's firstborn from an earlier marriage. Eventually they would move to a succession of West Side Chicago residences and bring up eight children. The house on Mozart where Larry Taylor Hill spent his early years was a gathering place for now-legendary musicians of Chicago blues. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed, and Elmore James were among the frequent houseguests who came to eat Vera Hill's soul food cooking and make music with Eddie Taylor, who had come to Chicago from Mississippi and had become a respected bandleader and accompanist to Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker and others. Larry Hill Taylor, born December 13, 1955 in Chicago, literally grew up at the feet of such legends of the blues. As a little boy Larry Taylor Hill beat on boxes and pots and pans and took up the drums when his birth father, Frank Burton, gave him a child's set. His earliest mentors included drummers Willie "Winehead" Williams, Chicken House Shorty, S.P. Leary and Cassell Burrow, who would leave his drums at the house after rehearsals. Young Larry was once caught setting up and playing them, but Burrow interceded with his stepfather to make sure he wasn't punished for it. As a youngster Larry saw his stepfather, Eddie Taylor, play on Maxwell Street with John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Floyd Jones, Johnnie Mae Dunson and others, and also attended at least one Vee-Jay recording session on which his stepfather accompanied Jimmy Reed. For a time the family lived above the Blue Flame on West Madison where Larry Taylor Hill would watch performances by Howlin' Wolf, Smokey Smothers, Sunnyland Slim and others through a hole in the roof. Larry Taylor Hill himself played on Maxwell Street with Pat Rushing, Willie James and others, and guitarist Magic Sam, who'd come to the house for Eddie Taylor's help, was one of the first to let Larry sit in while still underage. He kept his eyes and ears open to the blues and all the other musical influences coming at him, keeping in mind that blues was the ticket. His first big break came at the age of 21 in 1977 when he toured Europe with other young blues musicians as The Next Generation of Chicago Blues. He spent thirty years behind the kit, contributing his impeccable timekeeping and bludgeoning backbeat behind some of the greatest blues, soul and jazz artists of all time. Larry Taylor Hill has now chosen to step out from the shadows of the stage to take the microphone and enter a new phase of his musical career, fronting a band that plays genuine, homegrown blues and soul. (quoted from cdbaby.com)

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