Artist, Teacher Spotlight: Josh Taylor
Meet Josh Taylor
Along with being an award winning acoustic guitarist, Josh Taylor has accidentally played a set for Vince Gill at a guitar store, opened for a range of guitar legends including John Paul White, Andy McKee, and Calum Graham, and was personally invited to Tommy' Emmanuel’s Guitar Camp in Nashville. The Huntsville-based finger-style guitarist and guitar teacher draws inspiration from the Kentucky Thumbpicking tradition to create a melodious, rich sound that infuses his original music and renditions of old classics. Following his debut “The Four Walls EP,” Taylor is working on his first album and always looking for new students.
Q&A
North Alabama Arts: How long have you been involved in the Huntsville music scene?
Josh: When I was a teenager, I’d do open mics at Tangled Strings and a couple gigs here and there. 2022 was when I started making a living down here. I went to college in Nashville at Belmont for guitar, which was a little bit unusual because Nashville sort of shut down for the majority of the time I was there. But I got a lot of time to sit there and practice, which was smart…I’d probably still be in Nashville trying to make it as a side man if I didn’t have those two years just sitting there practicing. So short-term loss, long-term gain, maybe?
NAA: Why come back to Huntsville?
Josh: I moved home because I wanted to be a guitar teacher. When I was coming up, I had guitar teachers that I’d ask questions to and they had no idea. But now I have all the answers to those questions I had, so I said, I’ll go move home and try to be that guy. That’s been why I moved back here, to teach primarily, and I gig around a little bit. I work at front of the Fret Shop a couple days a week. And I used to run the shows at Tangled Strings from end of 2022, through 2023, and I quit in 2024. Danny [Davis] would be the personality, and I’d do the tickets, booking, emails, and hotels, all that stuff. Now he’s taken off and he’s got a ton of dates booked, a lot of big people, it’s cool to see that back in Huntsville.
NAA: When did you start playing guitar?
Josh: I started when I was 8. I liked Green Day a lot, so for the first few years of playing guitar, that’s all I did. “American Idiot,” “21st Century Breakdown,” putting those on the iPod and just playing down the whole record, or trying to as best I could. I took a turn into the folksy stuff when I was like 13, then I started chasing the Tommy Emmanuel stuff when I was like 17 or 18.
NAA: Did anything drive that transition?
Josh: There was a fella from my parents church that was a singer-songwriter type and he gave me “Dust in the Wind,” which is using the fingerstyle thing. I started doing stuff like that, and things like Fleetwood Mac, “Landslide.” It was all kind of in that same vein, and that was also 2013, when you go in YouTube, whatever the latest pop release was someone did a solo guitar version of it. There were a lot of ways to kind of take what I was hearing on the radio and be able to do it on one instrument, and some of them were better than others…from there, figuring out about Tommy Emmanuel when I was 17 and seeing him in concert. I just started learning his songs by ear, chasing that, and that’s led to being a teacher, doing the shows at [Tangled Strings], and getting to meet Tommy and have him sort of mentor me along a little bit has been a lot of fun. They say don’t meet your heroes, but he’s just this guy. Meet your heroes if they are cool. I met all my guitar heroes.
NAA: The “fingerstyle thing.” How would you describe that to someone who doesn’t know anything about it?
Josh: Finger picking guitar is a little bit nerdy. I like it a lot because I don’t need a band per se. All it is is instead of using a regular old pick to play the guitar. For me, I wear one pick on my thumb that kind of plays like a bass player, and then on top of that, I can use the pointer, middle, and ring finger on my right hand to play chords and melody and kind of play two or three guitar parts at once. I did that because I didn’t really know anybody else who played music growing up and I liked guitar a lot, so I was like, I’ll do it myself. Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, those are kind of the Big Three from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. From there, you get Tommy Emmanuel. And we’re all kind of trying to sound like Tommy Emmanuel.
NAA: You mentioned meeting all your guitar heroes. Who else is there?
Josh: Let’s see, Gareth Pearson. Tommy Emmanuel is the big one, Richard Smith, David Grier, I’ve gotten to meet John Paul White a couple times…Colin Hill…all my finger picking guitar heroes, I’ve met them all because it’s such a small community, little old me with the folks that play around the world in huge theaters.
NAA: What do you think are the coolest things you’ve done?
Josh: The John Paul White opening set was really, really cool. Then opening for Andy McKee, Trevor Gordon Hall, and Calum Graham who were more guitar heroes of mine. Brooks Robertston, who’s a professor at Berklee College of Music, I got to play with him. That’s all through [Tangled Strings], so I’m really glad that [Danny Davis] let me do what I did for that amount of time. Because I got to meet a lot of people….Definitely the Tommy Emmanuel association with him has been cool. He does a big guitar camp in Nashville every year, and he gave me a scholarship to come hang out for the weekend. I was playing at a guitar store in Nashville and some dude that produces educational content for him gave him my number. And he called me and was like, “do you wanna come?” And I was like, “is this—?” And he was like, “yeah! It’s me.” That’s not a number that I use a lot; it freaks me out to see that in my contacts, scared I’ll butt dial him.
NAA: Do you have any dream collaborations?
Josh: Playing with a band period is something that I’ve always struggled with because I’ve never been in one per se. Because I come from such a different mindset of I gotta do everything myself, playing with other people’s a skill that I never really polished up on. That’s the biggest thing I want to work on, being able to play with other people. Because I figured out most of what I wanted to figure out with this solo stuff. I want to address the other side. Music is kind of a communal thing to begin with.
NAA: You released an EP in 2022 and mentioned working on an album. What inspires your original music?
Josh: I don’t really chase a vibe or emotion as much like a singer-songwriter would. I take bits and pieces of other stuff I like and try to make new stuff out of them. I could point out each of my songs, they’re entirely mine, but this three seconds of it are directly ripped from this other song, and I use that other song to create a new one…The music’s the language and treating it as such I find it to be a lot more rewarding than just sitting there waiting for the muse to strike. Because that’s more of a process; i’s the art form and speaking tradition.
NAA: What are your goals in terms of music?
Josh: Performing’s cool; performing full-time is very, very difficult. Realistically, just keep teaching and build up a base doing that…I’m not entirely sure myself. But the big thing is I got the guitar degree, I can answer most every question that folks have, for the most part, which is cool. I’m really much more of a teacher than a performing musician. I feel like it’s got the most emotional return on investment.
NAA: Talk about teaching. How old are most of your students?
Josh: Anywhere from 10 to 80. It’s all over the place. Most of my students are way older than I am. I thought when I started teaching, it would be mostly kids, but I teach more older adults than anything. I do dig that. They’re more receptive than children are usually. But everyone’s different…I’m always trying to figure out new ways to help folks out. That’s kind of the nice part about teaching. It’s always something new. I was talking to the old guitar tech at the Fret Shop like, I can’t get people to listen to me! And he was like well, if they knew anyone that was your age as an infant or older, they’re never going to take you seriously.
NAA: How would you describe your teaching philosophy?
Josh: I don’t make a plan, but I do keep track of what everyone’s doing, what works and what doesn’t. I don’t look ahead, I look back and adjust from student to student. Most people who pick it up don’t want to be some guitar guru, they just want to have fun with it, and the barrier for entry for having fun with it really isn’t that high of a barrier. Once I get them doing that, I say, what do you want to do? Show them new stuff and see what they latch on to and just try to guide them along.
NAA: Circling back to Huntsville, what do you think of the city’s music scene now?
Josh: I think it could be way cooler. We are really close to Nashville. I don’t think we should be copying Nashville but that seems to be the kind of vibe that people are chasing after. I think it’s a little strange that Huntsville decided to start from the top down. They did the whole music audit in 2018, I went and read it, and I was like, what was the point of this? I think it would have been way cooler to just have a thousand 50 seat venues versus one Orion…it feels very corporate and not very artsy.
NAA: What would you like to see more of?
Josh: More individuals! Just people going and doing stuff. I’m an individual and I got Tangled Strings back going again. And that’s brought in 100s, if not 1000s of people listening. I want to see more venues, I want to see more people doing music, more house shows. Anything that’s 100 seat and under. Those are my favorite kind of shows. In Huntsville we really don’t have any aside from [Tangled Strings] and Gold Sprint and sometimes St. Stephen’s, that’s only three venues. Huntsville’s very insulated…it’s the same people playing the same gigs in the same places. It’s a little stale.
NAA: And finally, what are you working on right now?
Josh: Paying my taxes. Building up my schedule teaching. As far as creating stuff, writing a couple songs, getting that album cut, and collaborating with my buddy Colin Hill. Practicing and trying to get better and better and better and better.
This interview was recorded on 03/02/2025.
Listen, Book Lessons
Website: https://www.joshtaylorguitar.com/
Instagram: @okguitarist
Spotify: Josh Taylor
