Taylor Hollingsworth

From age 14 onward, Alabama-born Taylor Hollingsworth developed his skills on guitar and gained experience working as a sideman while simultaneously building a solo career as a singer and songwriter. He spent time performing with Cutgrass and Verbena before taking the helm of Taylor and the Puffs, which issued You Know That Summers Comin' during March 2004. Later that same year he issued his first solo release, the EP Shoot Me, Shoot Me, Heaven, and followed it in January 2005 with his debut full-length solo album, Tragic City. Mass Music put out his next solo album, Bad Little Kitty, in July 2008, coinciding with the start of a tour. Hollingsworth subsequently became a member of Conor Oberst's Mystic Valley Band, the singer's initial venture after Bright Eyes. Although he also worked as a sideman alongside Maria Taylor, his primary commitment stayed with the Mystic Valley Band; he contributed co-writing duties to several tracks on the group's second album, 2009's Outer South, and joined the accompanying tour. During that same year he managed to release the spare solo set Life with a Slow Ear, an album built almost entirely around his voice and acoustic guitar.