Review – Johnny Taylor: Bummin’ with the Devil

I don’t think it’s a shock to say that John­ny Tay­lor has a flair for dark irrev­er­ent humor. His debut album, Tan­gled Up In Plaid, estab­lished that. I have had the plea­sure of see­ing him live sev­er­al times and inter­view­ing him for Com­e­dy Wham Presents. The ques­tion is, how has Tay­lor evolved and grown with his fol­low up album, Bum­min’ With the Dev­il?

Pure and sim­ple, Tay­lor has now secured a spot as one of my favorite sto­ry­tellers. His abil­i­ty to turn a phrase that kills is one of my favorite skills in his arse­nal. His abil­i­ty to coin a term is so mag­nif­i­cent, I wouldn’t be sur­prised to hear them become com­mon phras­es. It is hard to make me laugh to the point of tears if I’m sit­ting in a room alone, but there is a cer­tain child­hood bit (Flash­dance) that Tay­lor shares that had me there, tru­ly gut-laugh­ing in my liv­ing room.

Tay­lor brush­es on the cur­rent state of affairs in the world and brief obser­va­tions, but his bread and but­ter are per­son­al anec­dotes, weaved into a tapes­try of one very fan­tas­tic album.

Taylor’s pac­ing and deliv­ery are per­fect and you can tell that he’s grown more com­fort­able as a per­former and a pol­ished sto­ry­teller. Relis­ten­ing to my favorite track as I write this, I would beg The Moth Radio Hour to con­sid­er an invite. Until they do, I sug­gest you go pick up Bum­min’ With the Dev­il, which comes out Decem­ber 7^th on Stand Up! Records.