Ryan Taylor, Sonya Rae Taylor
We’ve seen them playing many blues venues around New England. We’ve seen their huge presence on social media. Blues musicians and married couple Sonya Rae Taylor and her husband Ryan Taylor are virtuoso guitarists, blues singers, and multi-instrumentalists.
Sonya Rae and Ryan Taylor have been on the Boston scene for about four years. After getting married in 2012, they moved to Austin, Texas. There they played behind some incredible singers in the soul scene. Sonya Rae signed a publishing deal with BMG Chrysalis, and they moved to Nashville. After returning to Boston, they hit the ground running.
“We’ve been consistently gigging since,” Sonya Rae said. “Boston has so many great musicians and a lot of little pockets of different music scenes. I like to think that we aren’t just pigeon-holed to just one scene. I love working with musicians from all kinds of different scenes that may have never even met before even though they live in the same city.”
The couple broke into their beloved Boston/New England blues scene by landing gigs with outstanding local players. “When I met Bruce Bears, Jessie Williams, and Mark Teixeira at the Beehive in Boston, I knew I would be happy here,” Sonya Rae said. “We did so many gigs right off the bat all together. The Beehive became like a home, a place to play, try a bunch of new material, and stretch out.”
How did it all begin for the talented couple? They met at a long running blues jam hosted by Pete Henderson several years ago, and got engaged shortly afterwards.
Sonya Rae Taylor; wedding day
“I heard Ryan play and that was it,” Sonya Rae said. “We were engaged three months later.”
Before falling in love with each other, both musicians were in love with the blues. Sonya grew up with musician parents who often played music in the house, jazz, classic rock, classical, world music, and funk. That experience developed Sonya Rae’s musician ears. She picked up the guitar at 13, played rock and metal, then later discovered blues when a musician friend gave her a burned mixed CD for her 18th birthday.
“Every track was a great classic blues player, and I remember asking him ‘Who is that on track number 4,” Sonya Rae said. It was Albert King she was digging. She fell in love with blues then, and she’s never looked back. Jazz, soul, and funk soon followed. When she met her future husband Ryan at age 23, they were both kindred spirits in the blues.
Ryan Taylor has had similar tastes most of his adult life. He began learning at a young age, how to play songs by Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and The Allman Brothers Band
“Someone,” Ryan Taylor began, “had given me a copy of one of the early Ray Charles records a few years late. I think it was The Genius of Ray Charles. I was just completely floored, and that really bridged the gap and opened the door to a lot of things that I hadn’t been exposed to yet.
Sonya Rae Taylor, at North River Blues Festival/Marshfield Fair
Compatibility is what holds the two together in their busy music careers. Luckily, they still find time for each other through other interests.
“We definitely find time to do other things together and separately,” Sonya Rae said. “We luckily share hobbies in other areas, and I think that’s so important, so that not every conversation in the relationship revolves around the “next gig” or the to-do lists of playing shows. Grateful for that.”
“We are very lucky,” Ryan added. “We are best friends and we always have a ton of fun together so the ‘work’ doesn’t feel like work most of the time, and it all just blends together”
At times independent of each other, they form separate projects. Sonya Rae, for one exampe, co-founded world music duo Caravan Moon with singer-instrumentalist Yaeko Miranda Elmaleh. Mrs. Taylor became good friends with Elmaleh two years back. A mutual friend suggested they make a video together. They selected “J’attandrai” by Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli.
“It started to grow from there,” Sonya Rae said. “It’s a fun side project that has given me an opportunity to stretch my comfort zone.” It is just one of her many side indulgences. Side work, too, has been a major part of her career.
Sonya Rae Taylor, Ryan Taylor; North River Blues Festival, Mashsfield Fair
Ryan Taylor has spent most of his career as a sideman. He enjoys the rush of getting last minute calls for gigs, having to swiftly learn new material, and play without rehearsal with a group of musicians and singers he just met an hour before showtime.
“I’ve been doing gigs on Bass for the Nephrok Allstars which is a badass Boston-based funk outfit,” Ryan said. “That’s a ton of fun from the bass seat. Those who know Neph know he is an incredible singer and performer so you’re always on your toes. I’ve been doing some gigs on guitar with an Allman Brothers tribute band which has been a lot of fun. I grew up and started as a guitar player with all that stuff and it’s been a great excuse to dig deep into slide, open tuning and do a deep dive into Duane.”
“I’m also playing with a project called “A Band of Killers” which I’m real excited about,” Ryan continued. “It’s the brainchild of Johnny Trama and Toussaint the Liberator. I guess you could call it soul with a rock ’n roll edge. It has its own unique blend that you really have to hear. Toussaint has this powerful voice, and everyone in the band are all smokin’ players. It’s still tough to stay as busy as I’d like right now with the performance-based restrictions, so I’m really looking forward to things getting back to some normalcy.”
Sonya Rae Taylor and Ryan Taylor took different musical paths to become musicians. Mrs. Taylor has an academic background while Mr. Taylor had to get scrappy and learn it on his own. Sonya Rae’s father, Jack Perricone, was chairman of the Songwriting Department at Boston’s Berklee College of music for over 25 years. He was an arranger, composer, and jazz pianist who studied classical composition and music theory at Indiana University. Her father met her mother at a jazz club in New York City where her mother was an actress and a singer.
Ryan Taylor; wedding day
“I started on piano when I was something like four years old,” Sonya Rae said, “and studied classical music until I discovered the electric guitar as a teenager. I think I really wanted to find my own voice and rebelled against being a songwriter like my dad.”
Yet, Sonya Rae could not deny her own roots, becoming a staff songwriter in Nashville shortly after she finished up with Berklee. “I love the craft of writing and most of that was due to my dad teaching me about songcraft at home. Every dinner conversation was like private lessons on song analysis. ”
“I didn’t have musical parents like Sonya,” Ryan chimed in, which I am quite jealous of, I have to say. My father could maybe strum the chords to “House of the Rising Sun” but he was surprisingly opinionated on guitar players for a non-musician. I started playing in my late teens after hearing some ABB, Hendrix and SRV records from his collection.”
Many fans of the local blues scene have been blown away by this couple’s skills as multi instrumentalists. Although guitar became Sonya Rae’s primary instrument she still writes a lot of music on piano. She sang often as a child and then sang backing vocals for the artists she was supporting on guitar. She received more encouragement to sing from Ryan after they met.
“I spent many hours digging into my favorite vocalists and committing to really becoming a singer, in my 20s,” she said. “The more Ryan got interested in learning bass and drums, I did too. We spend a lot of time together digging into old soul and funk records and figuring out the bass and drum parts and trying to switch off. I still have a long way to go to be able to lay down a groove like Ryan can. I’ve also been recently teaching myself cello, for fun, because we found a decent one at a thrift shop. I absolutely love the sound of cello, but I am definitely a long way off from showing the world any of that.”
Ryan Taylor, Sonya Rae Taylor
Ryan added to his own repertoire of instruments when he and Sonya Rae were in Nashville putting together a home studio. The two aimed to demo material she was writing. He played some simple things on bass, keyboards, and on a small drum kit.
“I was going through a big Stax phase then,” he explained. Ryan taught himself the grooves by Roger Hawkins, David Hood from Muscle Shoals and Duck Dunn and Alan Jackson Jr. from the Stax studio, and Jerry Jemmott and Bernard Purdie from the Atlantic label. Throw in James Brown’s rhythm section, and Ryan found himself becoming a very busy student.
“That’s still keeping me plenty busy,” Ryan Taylor said. “I enjoyed more than just working on guitar stuff, and it really started to reshape the way I thought about and approached music.”
The most interesting aspect of Sonya Rae becoming an electric guitarist is that women are not usually pushed in that direction. She said this speaks to the large issue of why she didn’t play electric guitar until she was a teen. She did not have any female lead guitar heroes until she got more into blues.
“I, of course, discovered them later in my life,” she said. “Bonnie Raitt, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Susan Tedeschi. All became major influences, later, for me.”
The couple often play out as Sonya Rae Taylor Band with Ryan Taylor supporting on bass and and a cast of rotating drummers. This is the primary project for both Taylors. Moving forward, Sonya Rae would like to commit to more permanent band members, but that might take time to ossify. They were playing up to seven nights a week and rhythm section players are quite busy. The advantage to changing support players around is the variety of interpretations they bring to the Taylors’ music.
Ryan Taylor, Sonya Rae Taylor
“I think Ryan and I both really love seeing what different flavors and interpretations each player brings to our set. It stretches us in different ways, and makes the improvising, which is a huge part of our set, fresh and a lot of fun every time.” The couple also play out as a duo, calling themselves simply Sonya Rae and Ryan Taylor. It is not a side project as much as a simpler format for their covers and originals.
“We probably should have decided on an official name early on before gigging, but the truth is, we didn’t,” Sonya Rae said. “Sometimes we play out as “Sonya Rae Taylor Band” and sometimes we call it “Sonya Rae and Ryan Taylor”. When we officially release original music as an album or EP and begin touring, this will be considered with a lot more intention.”
Let’s hope the couple’s studio work captures the talent-laced thrills of their live shows.
https://www.sonyaraetaylor.com
