William "Shooby" Taylor (September 19, 1929 – June 4, 2003) was an American jazz vocalist famous for scat singing over various records, including those of the Ink Spots, the Harmonicats, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, Mozart, and Cristy Lane, in a baritone voice.
Nicknamed "The Human Horn", he is noted for his highly idiosyncratic scat style, using sounds and syllables quite unlike those used by other scat singers.
Writing in The New York Times, Marc Ferris noted that "those who seek out music that swims against the mainstream have been entranced by [Taylor's] originality."
Music historian Irwin Chusid described Taylor as "the world's weirdest scat singer," "100 percent uninhibited and soulful, in a lovably demented way," and stated that "a joyousness permeates [his] performances, a celebratory quality that serves as an analgesic for temporary relief from existential pain."
Biography
On September 19, 1929, Shooby Taylor was born in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania, a month before the Great Depression.
Circa 1946, Taylor married Sadie A.K.A. "Peaches" (last name unspecified), and at the age of 17 he had a son named William H. Taylor, Jr. The couple later divorced but remained friends until Sadie's death in the 1980s. Under the G.I. Bill of Rights, Taylor began studying at the Hartnett National Music Studio on 46th Street and 8th Ave in New York;
In 2002, he described his days working as a clerk at the Post Office:<blockquote>I used to work from 4 to 12 so I can get off work and work the clubs...because I tried to make a name for myself. I would go to jam session nights, you see. I was unknown, trying to get my name known. In 2002, when asked to recall the event, Taylor recalled:<blockquote>I was hurt, very hurt because I got booed off...And then I figured, "Oh, I did it wrong." But after months and months of thinking about it, I said, "I did it the way how I wanted to do it!" Bradley later transferred the tracks to cassette and sent copies to WFMU manager Ken Freedman, who, with Irwin Chusid, began broadcasting and circulating them, leading to a growing cult following for Taylor and "generating a frothing fan base." Taylor, however, was unaware of the publicity, and his fans were unaware of his whereabouts.</blockquote>
Style and reception
In 2000, Irwin Chusid wrote that Taylor's scatting "echoes Mother Goose nonsense simmering in a rich Afro-Yiddish stew." According to Chusid, "Shooby's vocabulary is a whole 'nuther language. Some of his favorite scat syllables are 'Raw-shaw,' 'poppy-poppy,' and 'splaw,' sputtered in a virile baritone vaguely reminiscent of Dudley Do-Right, the chaos-prone Canadian Mountie," and "his lung capacity is staggering; he never pauses long enough to inhale as he spews out astonishing high-octane vocal runs."
In 2002, Marc Ferris wrote that Taylor's music can be "difficult to digest. As he tries to approximate the sound of a saxophone solo with his voice, he hits sour notes. He spits out nonsense syllables like a machine gun, communicating in a private language nearly impossible to imitate. And he rarely meshes with his background music."
Legacy
During the 1990s, UK TV series Adam and Joe Show used the first 4 seconds of Taylor's version of "Lift Every Voice and Sing", at the start of their theme tune.
In 2005, Taylor made a posthumous appearance on a split 7-inch EP by Xiu Xiu and The Dead Science.
In the 2016 Illumination Entertainment animated film Sing, a recording of Taylor's rendition of "Stout-Hearted Man" is used for a hippopotamus's audition.
In 2017, a posthumous compilation of Taylor's work, entitled The Human Horn, was digitally released under the Songs in the Key of Z label. Dozens of these songs were not published during his lifetime.
Circa 2000, musicians Tom Waits and Marshall Crenshaw described themselves as fans of Taylor's music, with Crenshaw proclaiming Taylor "The King of Farfisa-Wielding, Outer-Space, Lunatic-Fringe Scat Singers."
- Expressing Myself (parts 1 & 2) as "Shooby Taylor the Human Instrument" (January 1971, Shooby Records)
- The Human Horn (and then some) - Dexter Gordon / Coltrane / Elvis (1980s, cassette)
- The Human Horn (and then some) - Johnny Cash (1980s, cassette)
- The Human Horn (and then some) - Country & Jazz (1980s, cassette)
- The Human Horn (2001, WFMU, cassette/MP3)
- The Human Horn (Side One) (2017, Apple Music)
- The Human Horn (Side Two) (2017, Apple Music)