(b Lincolnshire, c1833; d after 1907). English traditional singer. An estate bailiff from Saxby-All-Saints, he is considered by many to be the quintessential English traditional singer. In 1905 Taylor won a Music Competition Festival at Brigg in Lincolnshire for his performance of the horse-racing song Creeping Jane. The Australian composer Percy Grainger, who was at the festival, recorded 28 of Taylor’s songs including Brigg Fair, which was arranged in 1907 by Delius for tenor voice and mixed chorus. Taylor was certainly the most gifted of the performers recorded by Grainger. In 1908 Taylor became the first English traditional singer to appear on a commercial record when the Gramophone Company (now EMI) issued nine of his songs. He was described by Grainger as ‘a perfect artist in the purest possible style of folksong singing’, noting that his ‘effortless high notes, sturdy rhythms, clean unmistakable intervals, and twiddles and “bleating” ornaments are irresistible’.
P.A. Grainger: ‘Collecting with the Phonograph’, JFSS, iii (1908–9), 147–242
Unto Brigg Fair, various pfmrs, Leader LEA 4050 (1972)
J. Bird: Percy Grainger (Oxford, 1999)
DAVE ARTHUR