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FEATURED REVIEWS/ARTICLES FOR DIAMOND & GLASS:
Folkwax December
2002 Holiday Article.
Soundstage | Dirty
Linen | Sing Out!
Washington Post
9/13/02 | Washington Post
8/23/02
Toledo Blade | Folkwax | The Washington
Times 8/17/02 (article)
The Free
Lance Star | Rockzilla | The
Washington Times 6/29/02
The Music
Matters | Barnes & Noble | All Music
Guide
Fao Casa Gazette | Takoma Voice
Excerpts from Reviews:
" Taylor, an award-winning singer songwriter, is a poet...a romantic...conveying
inspirational thoughts and comforting messages...with heartfelt
vocals and sincere songcraft."
- Washington Post
"
Dulcie Taylor is a gifted writer...she also has a compelling
voice which she employs with nuance and emotion." - Dirty Linen
Diamond & Glass - "...a fine album leaning to the pop side
of folk. It can be repeatedly enjoyed." - Sing Out!
"
A thinking person's album with a cool feel." - Folkwax
"
...with edgy guitar work and personally evocative lyrics, Taylor
uses her voice and deeply personal lyrics to their best advantage...she
sustains the spell throughout..." - Washington Times
" No-nonsense songs...a superbly crafted acoustic-based album."
- Toledo Blade
"
Mesmerizing" - Barnes & Noble
"
Make no mistake about it, Dulcie Taylor is an artist...People
will think of Blue, (Joni) Mitchell's masterpiece. It is the
smartness of [Taylor's] singing ...every word counts. This is
a 3 a.m. CD, when the music feels more necessary." - Rockzilla
"
Taylor's voice is as clear and versatile as her playing and songwriting...a
promising debut." - All Music Guide "It shines exactly like its
title "Diamond & Glass." - Music Row
" This new disc by a strong, clear-voiced performer communicates
in a particularly strong and straightforward southern manner.
A new voice we will be hearing a lot more from in the future."
- Music Matters
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Folkwax, December 2002
Holiday Folk Favorites
Folkwax: Online Ezine
While you're spinning your own favorite Christmas discs, have
you ever wondered what your favorite musicians listen to at the
holidays?
I asked a few of them:
Preparing for Christmas in Nashville, Bluegrass award winner Alison
Krauss rings in the holidays with a classical turn. "We always
listen to the Nutcracker, and to Beethoven's 6th Symphony," she
says. Also in Music City, Country/Folk storyteller Kate Campbell chooses "Elvis
Presley's Christmas albums--my favorite song is "Blue Christmas."
Saltwater music specialist Del Suggs and FolkWax favorite
singer/songwriter Dulcie Taylor share a taste for a
mellow holiday classic. "My mother had a copy of a Christmas
album by Johnny
Mathis. My favorite on it is "What Child Is This?" - it is
absolutely my favorite Christmas song," explains Taylor, who
also enjoys listening to a spoken word recording of Dylan Thomas
reading his "A Child's Christmas in Wales" while getting her
northern Virginia home ready for the season. Suggs comments that "My
very favorite Christmas CDs are Bruce Cockburn and Nat
King Cole. That's quite a stretch in styles, I know, but
Bruce's disc is really so fresh with great new versions of
favorite traditional tunes, while Nat's recording is the tradition." Suggs
will be continuing a longstanding holiday tradition himself
when he and Pierce Pettis team up for their "Almost Christmas" concerts
in Tallahassee December 13 and 14.
Up on Cape Cod, contemporary Folkie Patty Larkin likes
to play Windham Hill's Celtic Christmas collections for her
holiday gatherings." That music creates a really neat atmosphere in the
house," she says. Down in northern Alabama, Bluegrass Grammy
nominee Claire Lynch likes those Celtic collections too,
and adds Country star Kathy Mattea's disc Good News. "That's
a killer album," Lynch says, " although maybe that's not the
best term for such a spiritual Christmas record!" she adds,
laughing.
Gretchen Peters' songs have been covered by Bryan Adams and Bonnie
Raitt as well as Pam Tillis and the Neville Brothers.
The range of music on the CD player at Peters' Nashville home
during the holidays is just as eclectic. Peters' top choice is Vince
Guaraldi 's A Charlie Brown Christmas, followed closely by
Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, Elvis' Christmas Album, the just-released Patty
Loveless disc Blue Grass & White Snow, and Gypsy Hombres'
Django Bells.
In Los Angeles, Folk music history maker Carolyn Hester and
her family also like Kathy Mattea's disc, and Hester names Joan
Baez' Noel as a perennial favorite. Along the Blue Ridge
in Virginia, Country/Folk performer Terri Allard says, "We
always listen to Leon Redbone's Christmas album to kick
in the holidays. It's the one we play first and the most." In
snowy Moose, Wyoming, singer/songwriter Tom Rush prefers
Bluegrass. "There's a local group here in Wyoming called Loose
Ties. They've got an album called Christmas Ties that I
really like," Rush says. Speaking of snow, down in the Texas
hill country, Joel
Guzman, who performs with his wife Sarah Fox as
the duo Aztex, says, "Sarah and I always play the Christmas
album Snowfall featuring Tony Bennett. We imagine building
a snowman with our son Gabriel, even though we don't usually
have
snow here at Christmas!"
Whether at home in Nashville or visiting relatives in her Kansas
hometown, Country award winner Martina McBride finds
her very favorite Christmas song to be a carol "For me, 'O Holy Night'
sums up what Christmas means -- what it must have felt like to
have been there," she says.
I, along with the rest of the FolkWax staff, wish you all happy
holidays filled with family and music.
by Kerry Dexter
Kerry Dexter is a contributing editor at FolkWax.
Kerry may be contacted at folkwax@visnat.com.
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Soundstage, December 2002
Published since 1995
SOUNDSTAGE!
The World's Leading Magazine for High-End Audio and Music
DULCIE TAYLOR, "Diamond & Glass", Black Iris Records 1181
Released: 2002 The field of female singer/songwriters is littered with talented
participants. From stalwarts such as Joni Mitchell and Ricki Lee
Jones to modern stars like Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette and counter-culture
favorite Ani DiFranco through up-and-comers like Norah Jones, there
is a plethora of singers and styles to suit every palate. So how
does relative newcomer Dulcie Taylor get noticed?
With her debut album Diamond & Glass, that’s how. Its songs
are at once dreamy yet thoughtful, intelligent yet tuneful. Mixing
folk and pop, there are healthy doses of bluegrass, country,
and rock intertwined within her songwriting. It doesn’t hurt
that she is also an accomplished musician. Her work on acoustic
guitar and dulcimer is pleasingly impressive, but it is the depth
and insight she has infused within her songs that caught my attention.
Even the titles of the songs illustrate Taylor’s foundation in
real life, as opposed to the make-believe worlds less talented
songwriters seem so often to be writing about.
For instance, how many times have you heard songs dealing with
divorce -- from a child’s perspective? I can’t think of too many,
if any. Taylor’s song on the subject, "I Have a Ring" plaintively
asks, "Iused to wonder, as I was growing, why does a married
couple part? Why don’t they just sit down together, work it out
and make a new start?" And she doesn't simplify the complexity
of the subject, either -- she continues, "Now that I’m grown
I understand it, day to day can be hard."
Taylor even finds new insight into a subject that has been covered
to death, such as the emotional abuse heaped on one partner by
the other. In "It Ain’t Love," she sings, "He says he loves you
but he’s never home, even when he is you’re still alone. It ain’t
love. What he’s given ain’t love."
Black Iris Records, Taylor’s label is new to me, but with a singer/musician
like Dulcie Taylor combined with sound reproduction that accentuates
the acoustic instrumentation used on Diamond & Glass, Black
Iris has produced a disc that is both aesthetically and sonically
worthwhile. It’s easy to pick out and follow each of the many
varied instruments. And because Taylor's voice, full of nuances
and layered meanings, is the star here, it's good that it was
so well recorded. And, although the cover doesn’t say so, the
disc is labeled HDCD for those of you to whom this matters.
If Taylor recorded for an audiophile-approved label such as Chesky,
she would be hailed in high-end circles as a star. If she was
being recorded by one of the major labels, her name would probably
be on the cover of Rolling Stone by now. But she’s not, so she’ll
have to stand or fall on the merits of her songs. Diamond & Glass
offers a firm foundation upon which she can continue to build
her resume. Intelligent, witty, and with a strong desire to write
more than just plain pop songs, Dulcie Taylor has a bright future
ahead of her. I look forward to her continued development in
her next albums. But until they appear, I’ll happily continue
to enjoying this one.
by John Crossett
johnc@soundstage.com
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Dirty Linen, October/November '02, #102
DULCIE TAYLOR, "Diamond & Glass", Black Iris Records
Dulcie Taylor is a gifted writer, taking small moments of life
and weaving thoughtful original commentary from them. Her lyrics
are more abstract than rooted in place or geography, but nonetheless
powerful:
"love can cut like a diamond
love can shatter like glass"
she sings in the title cut. The WAMMIE award winner and Chris
Austin Songwriting Contest finalist attributes her perceptive
lyrical skill to growing up in small town South Carolina. "You're
in people's faces a lot," she explained. "That makes you look
at the human situation much more closely." Taylor has a compelling
voice which she employs with nuance and emotion on the heartbreaker "Easy
For You ", the bluesy "I Don't Know Anymore ", and the folk ballad "Cherokee." She's
an accomplished guitarist and dulcimer player, as well. Diamond & Glass
is a polished and reflective collection from a distinctive singer.
Kerry Dexter
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Sing Out! Fall 2002, Vol. 46 #3
"
Diamond & Glass", Black
Iris Records 1181
Dulcie Taylor is one of the Mid-Atlantic area's rising songwriters
and performers. Hailing from South Carolina, she has a soft,
well-modulated voice that is a pleasure to listen to. In this
album she has assembled a band that adds an almost plush feeling
to her vocals. George Nauful produced the album adding a master's
touch to the instrumentation and supporting vocals.
The 12 songs were all written by Tayor. This is a fine album
leaning to the pop side of folk. It can be repeatedly enjoyed.
Victor K. Heyman
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Dulcie Taylor's Time Pieces, September 13, 2002,
Page WE11
By Eric Brace, Washington Post Staff Writer
"
WHEN I moved back here to Virginia, it felt like coming full
circle, since my family's from Virginia," says songwriter Dulcie
Taylor, who relocated to McLean from Los Angeles five years ago.
So Dulcie, you were born here in the area?
"
Oh, no, no," she corrects, almost like an elementary school teacher. "I'm
talking 1783, you know." Taylor, who was born and raised in South
Carolina, talks about her ancestors as if they're still alive.
Her ability to turn "then" into "now" gives her story-songs --
whether set a hundred years ago or last week -- a sense of immediacy
and timelessness.
As a teenager, Taylor would rewrite the lyrics to songs on the
radio, and says that making the jump to writing her own songs
was an easy one. "I was always writing poetry, and there was
always music around my house and in my head, so it was just a
matter of putting them together," she says in a rich southern
accent and a voice you could accurately describe as musical. "I
grew up surrounded by music, and just loved it. It was my favorite
part of church." She also had an aunt who taught piano, another
aunt who sang on a local radio show, and at age 6 got a ukulele
that she played endlessly for years.
When she was 10, her beloved ukulele was wrecked when a friend
of her older sister drunkenly sat on it. "That just destroyed
me," remembers Taylor. "But it worked out because my mother said,
'We'll just get you something a little bigger.' And that Christmas
she bought me a guitar."
Taylor got herself a book of folk songs and set to it. "Isn't
that the same thing everybody did?" she asks. "And then there
was that moment, that first time you learn to make a G chord
and you go 'yee ha!' I was hooked." Taylor began playing gigs
as a teenager around town, but headed west before graduating
from college, knowing only that she needed to get out of South
Carolina. "I was ready to try something very different," Taylor
says, "and let me tell you L.A. is very different from South
Carolina."
In California, Taylor forsook performing solo, choosing instead
to play in bands, meeting many of the people who would later
record on her excellent second CD, "Diamond & Glass," released
this summer on the California-based label Black Iris Records.
It wasn't until recently that she's gone back to performing under
her name, either solo or with a small group (which usually includes
guitarist John Landau and bassist Henry Cross, though sometimes
Nick Smiley joins on bass).
While it would be easy to lump Taylor into the ever-growing pile
of self-indulgent folkie singer-songwriters, her sharp compositions
are more jazzy pop, like Kenny Rankin or recent Shawn Colvin
or not-so-recent Rickie Lee Jones. And underneath some of the
tunes runs a subtle spiritual vein. "I was raised in the Bible
Belt, raised Baptist, so I don't think I'll ever lose that moral
compass that was instilled in me at a young age," says Taylor. "But
I don't think God intended me to get up every Sunday, go somewhere
and get irritated."
She also admits that her songs might be infused with a certain
joie de vivre, a spirit that crept in after surviving a carjacking
in Los Angeles. "It was at 12 noon in front of a crowded grocery
store," she says matter-of-factly. "When I saw the gun, I thought
they wanted my purse -- there were no words exchanged -- and
so I handed him my purse. I realized then that his hands were
full and I ran." Besides leading her to always wear shoes she
could run in, the incident made Taylor value her time on Earth
a little more.
"
Sure you plan and you think ahead," Taylor says, "but basically
all you have is what you've got this very moment. I'm not saying
I always live with that in mind, but I'm saying we should all
try."
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Washington Post, 8/23/02, page WE06
DULCIE TAYLOR, "Diamond & Glass", Black Iris Records
Dulcie Taylor's "Diamond & Glass" has all the makings of
a hardcore country album: tales of divorce, despair and death,
along with occasional allusions to emotional abuse and reckless
drinking. But Taylor, a Wammie-award-winning singer-songwriter,
is more poet than honkytonker, and far too much of a romantic
to let an album unfurl without conveying inspirational thoughts
and comforting messages.
Besides, on "Diamond & Glass" she's surrounded by musicians
well known in contemporary pop and jazz circles, including pianist
Brian Culbertson, guitarist Jeff Golub and saxophonist Steve
Cole, who augment her acoustic guitar and dulcimer with a light
instrumental weave that generally suits her appealing voice and
often wistful phrasing. Taylor writes songs on an intimate scale,
quietly summoning a child's memories of her parents' divorce
("I Have a Ring"), a woman's sudden awareness that the hurt caused
when love turns from rapture to rack isn't divided equally ("Easy
for You"), and a few words of advice for a friend in trouble
("It Ain't Love"). On "You and Me," she sums up a soured relationship
and a bewildering situation with one swift blow: "This can't
be you and me/ Paying a third party to put our hearts together
again."
- Mike Joyce
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Toledo Blade (Toledo, Ohio), 7/28/02
"
These no-nonsense songs, superbly crafted by multi-instrumentalist
and singer Taylor, are slices of life's most basic moments. Her
clear, crisp voice gets help from a stellar lineup of veteran
session players on original tunes that fall somewhere between
folk and easy pop. This acoustic-based album of a dozen fine
numbers showcases Taylor's insightful songwriting along with
her dexterity on guitar and dulcimer."
- Ken Rosenbaum
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Folkwax, 8/21/02
A Thinking Person's Album With a Cool Feel
This album sounds like girls' night at the coffeehouse; some
nice jazzy Country Folk and some lyrics examining relationships
from a woman's perspective. Very few artists are able to put
together an album of their own songs and styles without having
to at least lean towards the big buildings where music is sold.
It doesn't sound like Dulcie Taylor has catered to the business
side, even though she's made an album with that sort of potential.
I should think that this album will make it to radio, even though
it is better than that. The whole album has a nice jazzy feel
behind it. Lyrically it is an examination of relationships from
various angles.
The opener and title cut just sounds like it should be on the
radio, it has all the stuff: a woman's point of view on relationships,
a nice melodic chorus and a nicely produced sound. "Easy For
You" shines because of the good picking. Taylor's voice is strong
and the arrangement is interesting.
The third cut is a great song that I will expect to hear others
add to their repertoires as Taylor looks at her parents' twenty-year
marriage, their subsequent divorce and the eventually understanding
she acquired with age. "Happy endings aren't always in the cards.
Now that I'm grown, I understanding that day-to-day can be hard."
"
It Ain't Love" is a girlfriend giving advice to a friend who
is blind to how she is being treated by a cheating man; there
is some nice guitar here, Taylor herself is playing the dulcimer.
With a fat hook like this, here is another one with commercial
potential even though it has some great lines and, again, a kind
of cool Country Jazz feeling.
Instrumentally I liked "Spirit of Love" the best with some good
acoustics and nice bass added by Matt Bissonette. I would have
like to have heard him on other cuts. "You and Me" looks at a
relationship that has ended up in therapy. "If we don't get it,
if we don't learn to hold on, I'm gonna have to learn to live
with a hole in my heart. This can't be you and me." Nice introspective
stuff here. "Sometimes Love Ain't Enough" looks back at a relationship
that didn't make it. "Full of hopes, full of dreams we were sure
love was all we'd need."
Taylor's song about the death of her mother, "Goodnight 'till
Then," is masterful. She deals with the circumstances of the
experience and offers up her mournful goodbye. As personal as
this song is, it is another that other singers should consider.
On "I Don't Know Anymore" Taylor takes more rocking acoustic
Blues bent with Tony Recupido playing some nice lead guitar,
as he does throughout he album. I would definitely like to hear
more of this side of Taylor, maybe even a bit more electric And
I did on the closing cut, "Never Enough," about a woman who can
never be satisfied with her life, who "with the world at her
feet she still feels incomplete." "She is like an angel when
a friend needs a hand but when people try and help her, nobody
can."
This is a good album, George Nauful did a great job of producing
a sound that really works and, almost in a concept kind of way,
builds to a nice ending. Taylor builds good arrangements around
thoughtful lyrics. This is a thinking person's album that makes
us look at our own relationships through Dulcie Taylor's words,
and it grew on me quickly.
-Jason Wesley
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The Washington Times, 8/17/02
Dulcie in D.C.: Tayloring success
Singer and songwriter Dulcie Taylor has been in the Washington
area only four years, but already she's had an impact: Her debut
self-produced recording garnered a 2001 Washington Area Music
Association Wammie and her latest CD, "Diamond & Glass," is
earning attention across the nation's airwaves.
The record was released in mid-June and recently hit No. 97 with
a bullet on the Album Network charts for noncommercial AAA radio.
Several of the 12 tracks, all written by Miss Taylor, are getting
time on the air.
The McLean resident came to the area from Los Angeles when her
husband's company transferred him here. She sought out her West
Coast musical connections to make this second album, however,
which was produced by George Nauful on Black Iris Records in
Los Angeles.
The CD features edgy guitar work and personally evocative lyrics
that fit easily into mainstream adult-oriented radio, but on
several tracks Miss Taylor plays lap dulcimer — a traditional
instrument not typically found in music on the charts these days.
Although she grew up in small-town South Carolina, she was introduced
to the dulcimer after she moved to Los Angeles, where she says
she played "bluegrass, country, rock 'n' roll — played a little
bit of everything."
"
A friend of mine was given a really nice dulcimer. He wasn't
playing it," Miss Taylor says. "He was a guitarist. So I started
playing it. And I just said I love this and I've got to keep
playing it. He said, 'It's yours.'"
Miss Taylor will bring her dulcimer and guitar to Vic's Music
Corner at O'Brien's Barbecue in Rockville on Aug. 28 at 8 p.m.,
where she opens for Sally Fingerett of the Four Bitchin' Babes.
She's also bringing along guitarist John Landau and bass player
Nick Smiley to accompany her.
After that, it's more time on the road — heading west to Ohio
and Kentucky dates in September, then in October playing the
Virginia State Fair in Richmond and New York's Makor club.
However, music isn't the end-all for Miss Taylor, who also writes
poetry when she has time. Since 2001, she has had a seat on the
Folger Shakespeare Library's Poetry Series Board of Directors.
"
My mother listened to everything from Elvis [Presley] to Ella
[Fitzgerald] and Frank [Sinatra], and my sister introduced me
to [Bob] Dylan and the Beatles," Miss Taylor says. "I've listened
to everything, and I like it all. But you know, you can only
listen to so much music and sometimes you need something different."
Life in the Washington area agrees with Miss Taylor, who says
she enjoys the area's trees most.
Washington, she says, "is a beautiful city. It's easier to live
here than in L.A.
"
I don't miss the earthquakes," she says.
-Jay Votel
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The Free Lance Star - 08/01/2002
Dulcie Taylor releases 'Diamond and Glass'
McLean singer-songwriter Dulcie Taylor had been winning over
coffeehouse and club crowds before attracting critical
acclaim and getting radio play for her new pop album "Diamond
and Glass," released in June.
But she insists she didn't do anything differently when she recorded
the CD.
"
I do what I do. . . ," Taylor said. " So why would I change?
Hopefully the only change will be getting better."
The album features wonderful lyrics. . . and in addition to writing
and singing, she plays the guitar, dulcimer and harmonica.
Taylor knew the album was special when she was recording it.
"
I've listened to a lot of music and with the players that were
on it, I knew it was good," she said. "But this is such a hard
business, you can have a great product that doesn't do well and
have bad stuff that does. It's a strange business, we all know
that."
"
You can tell it's good when you get your family turned on and
it's not like 'Oh, we're your family,'" she said.
Taylor, a South Carolina native who moved to Los Angeles before
settling in Northern Virginia, has been doing a tour of radio
stations up and down the East Coast.
"
It exciting," she said.
-Michael Zitz
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Rockzilla - http://www.rockzilla.com/
Dulcie Taylor - Diamond & Glass, Paras/Black Iris Records BI 1181
God help the lonely
What do they do?
Those who have no one
To help them in the dark
-Dulcie Taylor, "I Don't Know Anymore"
This is a good lonely in the dark cd. The singing and the songwriting
both are strong. Whether the singer truly represents the person
Dulcie Taylor, I can't know, but I do know a unifying perspective
links the songs on this cd and the result, while not exactly
a story, seems to be a series of reactions to certain hard events--the
death of a mother, the death of a marriage. I'm willing to bet
that a lot of you who read this will recognize the sequence of
emotions.
It's interesting to me when an artist--and make no mistake about
it, Dulcie Taylor is an artist, a serious writer of plain words
from a confused heart--ends a series of songs with one that calls
into question everything I just listened to. But that's how I
hear the end of Diamond and Glass, which is a series of songs
concerning the fragility of love between two humans, that old
imperfect love that's the best we have.
Let's get the inevitable comparison out of the way: her own label
compares her to Joni Mitchell. Mainly it's the dulcimer. You
play the dulcimer and you're a woman singer with a certain kind
of voice, people will think of Joni Mitchell. If you record the
series of songs that make up Diamond and Glass, mainly impressions
from a bad spell in a loving life, you're going to make me think
of Blue, Mitchell's minor-key masterpiece. The sparseness of
the musical backing, not to be confused with mindless folkie
guitar strumming, also recalls Blue.
She also keeps her words sparse. Dulcie is a poet, but that doesn't
mean the lyrics are going to look like poetry on the printed
page, let alone in Rockzilla format on your screen or mine. It's
the smartness of her singing, her repetition, the way she adds
a word to a line the next time it comes around, because every
word counts--because every time we say a word it counts, whether
we want it to.
The opening song, "Diamond and Glass," sets the tone for all
that follows:
The men that I once loved came to see me in my dreams
Of one I asked forgiveness
And one asked it of me
The words we said stayed with me
Long after I awoke
In a world that's never certain
here's two sure things I know
I know love can cut like a diamond
I know love can shatter like glass
Love can cut like a diamond
Love can shatter like glass
-Diamond and Glass
Like most of us when we're philosophizing, Taylor concentrates
more on the fragility of love, a fragility best represented by
a wedding ring from her mother's failed marriage:
I wear a ring Daddy gave Mama
As a promise to love her true
When she was younger, she wondered why a married couple couldn't
talk things out, a question the singer revisits in her own life.
By incorporating the same musical move in "I Have a Ring" as "You
and Me," Taylor pairs the failure of that marriage to the failure
of the singer's. Same failure, modern clothes; the talking cure.
This can't be you and me
Paying a third party
To help us put our hearts back together again
This can't be you and me
Hoping a total stranger
Can help us get across our ocean of pain
Graham Green once had a character say that death seemed much
too important to happen to him. You can feel about divorce much
the same way. This song explains why the singer can now understand
her parent's marriage.
Taylor recruited jazz musicians as well as folkies to back her.
Drummer Karma Auger and bassist Dan Lutz comes from Brian Auger's
Oblivion Express. These two deserve particular credit for understated
playing that nonetheless keeps the music rhythmically interesting.
Fusion guitar player Michael Landau plays lead guitar on most
cuts. Smooth jazz pianist Brian Culbertson plays on some songs
and equally smooth Stephen Cole plays soprano sax on "Corazon
Frio"--a tune and arrangement reminiscent of Al Stewart in his
heyday. The interplay of Culbertson's piano and Joe Golub's electric
guitar at the end of "Sometimes Love Ain't Enough" is the instrumental
high point of the cd. Various other musicians contribute to Diamond
and Glass, giving it a jazz-influenced pop sound.
So what did I mean about the last song in the series making me
start back to the beginning? After all these first-person, maybe-confessional
songs comes "Never Enough," a more sympathetic version of "!9th
Nervous Breakdown" or maybe Noel Coward's "Poor Little Rich Girl," a
song about a crazy dame, miserable despite her husband and her
lover and her "silk possessions."
Where's it going to lead the girl
How's it going to end
She's running running to trouble
It's always right around the bend
Never enough, never enough
Hold her and cry
Tell her you'd lay down and die for her
It's never enough
Never enough
Dulcie, is that you? (Not the money part.) I mean, not you, but
this character who up till now seems to be singing all the songs?
Is this an outside look at somebody we've been learning about
from the inside? Or just a little character assassination tacked
on at the end? In "I Don't Know Anymore," the singer's already
confessed to a little ordinary madness. "I don't know right from
wrong anymore," she says.
The days are long, the nights leave me tossed and torn
If not for you, I'd be lost like a child in a storm
I wake after midnight, running from dreams
Shine a light in the mirror
To show me who I am
After midnight is right. This is a cd unlikely to be played at
barbeques, bar mitzvahs, and baseball games. This is a 3 a.m.
cd, when music feels more necessary. When you're lonely in the
dark.
Dulcie Taylor's home page is at http://www.dulcietaylor.com/homepage.html.
Since I wrote this, she's told me the woman in "Never Enough" is
a third party.
-Reid Mitchell
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The Washington Times, 6/29/2002
Dulcie Taylor - Diamond & Glass, Black Iris Records
Washington-based singer-songwriter Dulcie Taylor uses her voice
and deeply personal lyrics to their best advantage on the title
track of "Diamond & Glass." She is able to sustain the spell
through 12 new songs on her follow-up to her self-produced and
Washington Area Music Association-award-winning 2000 disc, "Other
Side of the Bed."
Highlights of the record include the edgy electric guitar of
Michael Landau and nice guitar flourishes by producer George
Nauful, who co-wrote the title track with Miss Taylor. Throughout
the record, Miss Taylor's jazz-tinged voice combines with the
tremolo guitar to great effect.
Miss Taylor explores various aspects of love in her lyrics. In "Easy
for You," her song forgives a lover for ending a relationship
but asks how he could walk away so easily. "I Have a Ring" is
a coming-of-age story about how, in maturity, a person comes
to understand why relationships just don't work out. These same
themes of relationships, pain and loss come through in "You and
Me" and "Sometimes Love Ain't Enough."
On "It Ain't Love" and "Spirit of Love," Miss Taylor evokes a
timelessness with the sound of her dulcimer playing.
A finalist in the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest
in 2001 and winner of five awards in the 2000 Mid-Atlantic Songwriting
Contest, Miss Taylor is making eight appearances in the Washington
area between the final days of June and the end of July in support
of her new release.
-Jay Votel
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The Music Matters
Dulcie Taylor - Diamond & Glass, Black Iris Records
This new disc by a strong, clear voiced performer communicates
in a particularly strong and straightforward southern manner.
She takes the thoughts that run through our head, and sets them
down in such a way that the feelings and emotions of these crystals
of frozen time become vivid moments as her songs. They are both
personal and universal in their appeal. They are the everyday
moments that need our attentions yet often wind up neglected.
She is an acute observer of the nuances of the way we interact,
and she has the ability with her songwriting and music to transmit
this interaction to the listener. Whether this ability comes
from growing up in musical family, a small town, in the South,
or some combination is not important. She handles the lead vocals
with a voice that reflects the emotion in the song. Her guitar
and dulcimer work is equally strong in addition she has a good
deal of excellent and sensitive support in production. There
is some very strong tasty backing from the musicians who assist
her, many of whom we do not think of when we think of the folk/singer/songwriter
style of music. It never overshadows and lets her songs and their
interplay comes through fully to the listener. A very strong
effort from a 'new' voice we will be hearing a lot more from
in the future.
-Bob Gottlieb
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Barnes & Noble
Dulcie Taylor's debut album, Diamond & Glass, is an unexpected pleasure rife with
elegantly crafted pop songs with a jazz undercurrent, incisive
lyrics, sweet, bluesy vocals reminiscent of both Joni Mitchell and Tish Hinojosa, and note-perfect instrumental support.
Taylor, who accompanies herself on acoustic guitar and dulcimer,
affects a bracing equanimity in singing of traumatic events,
wasting no time on mourning what can't be changed but rather
digging deep for the resolve to carry on and create a better
day. "I know happy endings aren't always in the cards," she sings
in "I Have a Ring," her wrenching account of a family torn apart
by divorce. In a briskly rendered advisory, "It Ain't Love," Taylor
gives a verbal kick in the head to a friend who's turned to whiskey
to dull the pain of her man's unfaithfulness: "Unless he's got
a heart that's true/unless you feel it when it touches you/it
ain't love." The evocative, Spanish-flavored heartbreaker "Corazon
Frio" alternately surges and recedes as Taylor delineates the
gradual dissolution of a love affair, the anguish heightened
by a dense, atmospheric production that includes memorable solos
from piano, cello, and soprano sax. These songs reveal more of
themselves with each listening, and the music works its own subdued
magic along with Taylor's lilting voice. Diamond & Glass
makes a mesmerizing impression.
-David McGee
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All Music Guide
Dulcie Taylor's Diamond & Glass collects a dozen
smooth, easygoing songs that mix folk, pop, and contemporary
country. Highlights include the brooding "Easy for You" and "Never
Enough," the lively "It Ain't Love," and the surprisingly tough "I
Don't Know Anymore," which also prominently features Taylor's
prowess on the dulcimer. Throughout the album, Taylor's voice
is as clear and versatile as her playing and songwriting, which
uses little details to tell a larger story, as on the title track
and "I Have a Ring."
- Heather Phares
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