Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor is listed in the credits for the following albums:

• 1983 - Robin Crow - Finish Line: Engineer
• 1983 - Steve Taylor - I Want to Be a Clone: Songwriter, Arranger, Keyboards, Vocals
• 1983 - Imperials - Side by Side: Background Vocals
• 1984 - Michele Pillar - Look Who Loves You Now: Songwriter
• 1985 - Angie Lewis - Heart Dance: Arrangements, Background Vocals
• 1985 - The Cause - Do Something Now: Vocals, Choir
• 1986 - Steve Taylor - Limelight: Producer, Songwriter, Vocals
• 1986 - Carman - A Long Time Ago in a Land Called Bethleham: Background Vocals
• 1986 - Sandi Patty - Morning Like This: Background and Choir Vocals
• 1987 - Russ Taff - Russ Taff: Boys Choir
• 1987 - Steve Taylor - I Predict 1990: Producer, Mixed, Songwriter, Vocals
• 1987 - Dave Perkins - Innocence: Duet Vocals
• 1988 - Phil Keaggy - Phil Keaggy & Sunday's Child: Songwriter, Percussion
• 1988 - Steve Taylor - The Best We Could Find: Producer, Mixed, String Arranger, Songwriter, Vocals
• 1989 - Various Artists - compilations - Adventures in the Land of Big Beats and Happy Feets:
• 1990 - Phil Keaggy - Find Me In These Fields: Vocals
• 1991 - Chagall Guevara - Chagall Guevara: Songwriter, Vocals
• 1992 - Newsboys - Not Ashamed: Producer, Songwriter, Background Vocals
• 1994 - Charlie Peacock - Everything That's on My Mind: Background Vocals
• 1995 - Guardian - Buzz: Producer, Songwriter
• 1995 - Geoff Moore - Familiar Stranger: The Early Works of Geoff Moore: Background Vocals
• 1995 - Newsboys - Going Public: Producer, Songwriter, Background Vocals
• 1995 - Steve Taylor - Liver: Producer, Songwriter, Vocals
• 1996 - Newsboys - Take Me to Your Leader: Producer, Songwriter, Whistling
• 1997 - John Jonethis - Lounge Freak: Songwriter
• 1997 - Guardian - Bottle Rocket: Producer, Songwriter
• 1998 - Newsboys - Entertaining Angels: Songwriter
• 1998 - Newsboys - Step Up to the Microphone: Songwriter
• 1999 - Bunch of Believers - It's a Ska, Ska, Ska, Ska World: Songwriter
• 1999 - Guardian - Smashes: Producer, Songwriter
• 2001 - Phil Keaggy - Songs About What Matters: Hand Claps
• 2004 - Newsboys - Devotion: Executive Producer, Songwriter

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Steve Taylor

Roland Stephen Taylor (born December 9, 1957), is an American Christian singer, songwriter, record producer and film director. The eldest of three children, Steve was born in Brawley, California. Taylor's father, Roland Taylor, was a Baptist minister. When Taylor was six years old, the family relocated to Northglenn, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. He graduated from Northglenn High School in 1976. While there, he attempted to learn the bass guitar, piano and trombone.

Upon graduation from high school, Taylor enrolled at Biola University in California. During his freshman year, he was first of the 100 chosen, from 20,000 applicants, to spend the summer at John Davidson's summer camp. At the camp, Taylor spent time learning from singers like Tony Orlando, Florence Henderson, and John Davidson. Also that year, Taylor heard one of his biggest influences, The Clash's London Calling. "It saved my life, musically," said Taylor.

Taylor returned home and enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to study "serious music". He graduated there in 1980, but described his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music and Theater as being worth "slightly more than the cash value of a Pizza Hut coupon."

1980s
In 1980, Taylor wrote and directed a pop musical comedy titled Nothing To Lose based on the story of the prodigal son from the Bible. It had a short run at a community theater in Denver. He also wrote and starred in a short film, Joe's Distributing, a parody of avant-garde films. Taylor wrote articles during this time that were published in the Wittenburg Door and Contemporary Christian Music magazine (for which he won an award from the Evangelical Press Association).

After recording a demo of original songs, Taylor began to write for the musical group The Continentals. The Continentals' founder, Cam Floria invited Taylor to join the group on a tour of Poland sponsored by Solidarity. When he returned to the United States, he was asked to perform at the Christian Artists' 1982 Music Seminar in Denver. Billy Ray Hearn, president of Sparrow Records, was backstage and immediately signed Taylor to a recording contract. He recorded his debut solo project I Want to Be a Clone in 1982 and released it in January 1983. He quickly gained a reputation for writing songs that satirized beliefs and practices with which he disagreed.

In 1983, Taylor recorded his first full length album. Released in 1984, Meltdown included some of the demo material that was not on Clone along with some new material. His video single of the title track, "Meltdown (at Madame Tussaud's)" was played on MTV, which was unusual for a Christian artist at the time. The video featured an appearance by actress Lisa Whelchel. The album also included "We Don't Need No Colour Code", which was critical of Bob Jones University and its anti-interracial dating policy, a policy that was not abandoned by the university until 2000. Another track on Meltdown, "Guilty By Association", one of the original demo songs, includes a jab with an impression in the middle eight at televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

During a performance at 1984's Cornerstone Festival, Taylor fractured his ankle while jumping off the stage. He finished the summer's tour in an electric wheelchair.

Taylor followed that release with On the Fritz, produced by Foreigner's Ian McDonald. Keeping with Taylor tradition, Fritz took aim once again at religious leaders, such as Bill Gothard ("I Manipulate"), greedy TV evangelists ("You Don't Owe Me Nothing"), politicians using religion or avoiding questions of morality in order to get votes ("It's a Personal Thing"), and public schools teaching "values clarification" to children, asking them to determine who should be thrown overboard in an overcrowded lifeboat ("Lifeboat").

In 1985, Steve received his first Grammy nomination in the "Best Male Gospel Performance" category, while also being nominated for Dove Awards as "Gospel Artist of the Year" and for Meltdown as the "Best Contemporary Album of the Year". Taylor and "Some Band" performed at the Dove Awards ceremonies in Nashville in April of that year.

Taylor also recorded a duet with Sheila Walsh, "Not Gonna Fall Away", a tune written and recorded in 1981 by David Edwards. This was released as a 12" single titled Transatlantic Remixes. Taylor and Walsh embarked on the "Transatlantic Tour" which included dates in the United Kingdom and the United States. Taylor and Walsh also participated in the recording of "Do Something Now", a collaborative effort, similar to "We Are The World", to raise money for Compassion International's famine relief programs in Africa.

In between performing, recording and touring, Taylor met and married Debbie Butler of Irvine, California. They were married by Taylor's father at a private ceremony in Connecticut. Mrs. Taylor designed the album cover for a compilation on Sparrow, The Best We Could Find (Plus 3 That Never Escaped), as well as some of Taylor's more colorful stage costumes.

In 1987, Taylor once again lived up to his controversial reputation with a song called "I Blew Up The Clinic Real Good". The song criticizes anyone who claims to be a pro-life activist who would blow up abortion clinics or kill doctors. The point of the song was lost on many and resulted in Taylor's album, I Predict 1990, being pulled from the shelves at some Christian record stores. Taylor himself would occasionally call those stores to explain the song to them. With 1990, Taylor's targets included mainstream Universities ("Since I Gave Up Hope I Feel A Lot Better", featuring fiddle work from Papa John Creech of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna). Other tracks included "Jim Morrison's Grave", which once again brought Taylor some MTV exposure, and the Flannery O'Connor inspired "Harder to Believe Than Not To". Some stores also pulled the album as they thought the cover looked like a Tarot Card. Taylor's tour for "I Predict" was his most ambitious to date, bringing him to Australia, Canada, England, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and the Philippines.

1990s
Taylor then took a break from music, until 1990 when he returned as the lead singer of Chagall Guevara. Their first recording was "Tale o'the Twister," which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume. The band released their only album, the self titled Chagall Guevara, in 1991 on MCA records. A follow-up album was begun, but not finished before the band was released from its contract, following slow sales for their debut.

Taylor returned with another solo album, Squint, and a live CD, Liver, in the mid-1990s. Squint included the track "Smug", which mocks Rush Limbaugh and Barbra Streisand as iconic masters of smugness. The album also included the song "Cash Cow", which takes a jab at yet another televangelist, Robert Tilton.

A tribute to Taylor entitled I Predict A Clone was released in 1994 that featured performances by Sixpence None the Richer, Fleming and John, Starflyer 59 and others.

In the years following those releases, Taylor focused his efforts on running Squint Entertainment and producing projects for other artists, including Sixpence None the Richer's self titled 1997 release that featured the hit singles "Kiss Me" and a cover of The La's "There She Goes". He would be most noted for his work with Newsboys, co-producing five of the band's albums while making contributions to the band's songwriting. Squint Entertainment lost its financial backing in 2001 and Taylor was forced out of the company.

Steve Taylor. (2011, August 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 12:19, August 18, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steve_Taylor&oldid=444354476

NEW ONLINE INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY ON STEVE TAYLOR
Site Features the Life and Career of Christian Artist and Upcoming Blue Like Jazz Film Director, Steve Taylor

NEWBERG, OR, AUGUST 1, 2011: Steve Taylor's Digital Clone is breaking new ground in the art of documentary storytelling. The website highlights the career of the 80’s Christian musician Steve Taylor. Professor of Cinema and Media Communication at George Fox University, Sarah Gibson, directed and produced the iPad compatible site. The project, tobeaclone.com, places the audience in the drivers seat allowing them to control, explore, and interact with a wealth of material, most of which has never been seen.

The project features hours of interviews from Christian music industry leaders, journalists, and musicians. It chronicles Steve Taylor as a man, artist, producer, and filmmaker. The site, made possible by a grant from George Fox University, highlights material originally gathered for the traditional documentary, Steve Taylor is Not Dead. Gibson set out to create a companion to the film while experimenting with a new form of storytelling. Interactive documentaries are currently very rare with notable projects being produced by the National Film Board of Canada and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Gibson began working on the project in May 2011 alongside four George Fox University students. The team immediately engaged Steve Taylor fans via Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. The project is slated to be an ever-evolving site with new content to be added over the next several months. This fall Lipscomb University will host the Nashville premiere of the traditional documentary, Steve Taylor is Not Dead, as a part of the HumanDocs Film Series, sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences.

ABOUT STEVE TAYLOR: In 1983 Steve Taylor began his career as a solo artist armed with his faith and satirical lyrics. His first big hit was “I Want To Be A Clone." His music career was both successful and controversial leading to his retirement in 1987.

In 1991, he joined a rock band called Chagall Guevara. They only made one album. He returned in 1993 to release one more solo album before moving into producing other artists. The Newsboys, Sixpence None the Richer, and Guardian have all worked with Steve. He also has written songs for Veggie Tales.

In the late 90s, he founded the record label Squint. Squint signed bands such as LA Symphony, Burlap To Cashmere, Chevelle, Waterdeep, The Insyderz, and Sixpence None The Richer. In 2003, Steve transitioned to filmmaking and will soon be releasing his second feature film, Blue Like Jazz.

After being a fixture in the 1980 music scene, Steve moved his focus to producing and directing. He spent four years as head of Squint Entertainment, a fledgling record label that focused on taking Christian artists to the mainstream. After the label lost its funding, he continued to produce other artists.

But Taylor's current focus is film making. He has directed music videos for many artists. He made his movie directorial debut in 2006 with the film Second Chance starring Michael W. Smith. Currently he is working on a film adaptation of Donald Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz, though a release date has not been announced.

• Fan Page: www.SockHeaven.org
• Documentary: www.ToBeAClone.com
• Twitter: @theperfectfoil

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Christian Music Archive Radio is a daily radio program featuring many of the artists found on the Archive.
Here is the show where Steve Taylor was featured.

		Mp3
5 December, 2012	Steve Taylor	CMA070-SteveTaylor.mp3

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