Chip Taylor

Born in Yonkers, New York in 1944, Chip Taylor (a.k.a. James Wesley Voight), is the youngest of the enterprising Voight brothers-Jon, an Academy Award winning actor; and Barry, a world-renowned geologist.

By the time he was eight years old, music was having a strong impact on Chip's life. At night he would stay up as late as his parents would allow to listen to country music broadcasts from Wheeling, West Virginia.

While attending the University of Hartford, Connecticut, Taylor would travel back and forth to New York City three days a week, pitching songs to any publisher who would listen. At the same time, he honed his golf game to the point where, in 1961, he turned professional.

Some years later, after being sidelined with a wrist injury, Taylor decided to give music a second chance. When Chet Atkins recorded several of Taylor's compositions with artists he was producing, Chip got his first big hit as a songwriter for Bobby Bare's version of "Just A Little Bit Later On Down The Line."

Somewhere in the mid-'60s Chip signed a staff writer's contract with CBS Blackwood Music. He started combining his country feel with R&B and wrote the classic rock songs, "Wild Thing," "Angel Of The Morning," "Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)" and "I Can't Let Go." During this time, Chip and his partner Al Gorgoni discovered and produced James Taylor, as well as Neil Diamond and his Brooklyn Roads.

In 1993, after taking a break from the music business in the '80s, Chip found his creative juices flowing again. About that time Bonnie Raitt recorded Chip's "Poppa Come Quick" on her Luck of the Draw album. As he puts it, "I don't know what's come over me, but I'm sure of one thing-whatever it is, it ain't leaving! From now on I'll be doing one thing-playing my music for whoever wants to listen."

Joining Chip is guitarist Bruce Koplow.