Joanne Shaw Taylor has played with all sorts of blues musicians all over the world, she even made a film Deep Blues where she went to Mississippi and recorded with some legendary players such as R.L Burnside and Jesse-Mae Hemphill.
"Last year I heard something I thought I would never hear... a British White Girl playing blues guitar so deep and passionately it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end!" (Dave Stewart/Eurythmics)
When Dave Stewart had his big experience, Joanne Shaw Taylor was only 16. Her skills at the Telecaster were so perfect that the blues fan and Eurythmics-frontman asked her to join his supergroup D.U.P. to tour Europe in 2002. She was also offered a record contract but the label went bust. Today Joanne is 23 and happy about the fact that she took her time with the recording debut: "I wanted to take time out to really work on my craft and make sure that when I did an album it was the best that I could do."
Joanne Shaw Taylor
For White Sugar Joanne took a plane to Memphis where her label RUF had booked Jim Gaines' studio. Jim had worked with some of Joanne's idols like Albert Collins and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He brought in the experienced sessionmen Steve Potts (drums) and Dave Smith (bass). "Working with these guys was totally easy. I knew of them because of Luther Allison and Jonny Lang's albums. They didn't know the tracks until five minutes before we recorded them. I made them listen to the songs once and then play them. It was fantastic. They got so much feeling and soul. They are amazing guys to work with."
