Tut Taylor earned admiration from fellow players as a musician’s musician, though broad fame never came his way. Born in Milledgeville, Georgia, he first handled a banjo in childhood and later picked up the mandolin. His enduring fascination with the dobro took hold at fourteen after he caught a performance by Brother Bashful Oswald; he then wrote to Roy Acuff inquiring about the instrument’s identity, purchased one, and mastered it through the flat-picking technique already familiar from his mandolin work. During the early 1960s Taylor, Glen Campbell, and the Dillards formed the Folkswingers, issuing three albums by the close of 1964, one of which was titled 12 String Dobro!. His first solo outing, Dobro Country, also appeared in 1964. Later in the decade he became a member of the Dixie Gentlemen, and in 1969 he and fiddler Vassar Clements formed the nucleus of John Hartford’s backing group. In 1970 Taylor helped establish the respected Nashville instrument store GTR while also cutting tracks alongside artists such as David Bromberg. His next solo release, Friar Tut, arrived in 1972; around the same time he joined Randy Wood, Ginger Boatwright, and Norman Blake in opening the Old Time Pickin’ Parlor, a popular Nashville nightclub and music shop frequented by the city’s leading figures. The following year he contributed to the album Hank Wilson’s Back. Taylor issued another solo effort, The Old Post Office, in 1975 and followed it in 1976 with Dobrolic Plectoral Society. From the remainder of the 1970s until his retirement he operated Tut Taylor’s General Store in Nashville.
