Happy New Year!!

I just wanted to wish all my visitors a safe, happy, fun and healthy New Year. I enjoy writing about all Taylor Hicks happenings on this blog. When I started this blog October 16th 2006, I wasn’t sure how far it would go or how long I would keep posting to it but now it is nearly 3 years later (boy it doesn’t seem that long) and I am still following Taylor Hicks news and music and enjoying every minute of it. Thank you all for the visits and comments to my blog. Some of you are friends who I really am so happy to have gotten to know. Through the music of Taylor Hicks we have not only discovered a man with an awesome voice and personality to match, we have become a fan base filled with people who have made friendships that have uplifted us and enriched our lives.

When something good happens for Taylor, you can feel the excitement the fan base feels as a whole. When we are awaiting new music or videos, such as the upcoming CD the anxiousness and excitement we all feel comes through. We all have a common bond and it brings us closer.

I can not wait to see what the future of 2009 holds for Taylor and to experience all the joy and excitement that will abound in the Soul Patrol.

Taylor Hicks 2008 The Year in Review

2008 brought some great Taylor Hicks new for fans. Taylor kept busy taking his career in new and bigger levels. I am sure I have missed some happenings so please leave comments of anything you know I have missed and I will get it added to the list.

January 2008 In the first couple weeks of January 2008 Taylor parted ways with Arista records.
Now at the start of 2009 with Taylor having his own label, Modern Whomp Records and partnering with Arttist2Market, Taylor Hicks has total control of his new album due out in March and he can create the kind of album that he wants. I am sure 2009 is going to be a great year for Taylor.

February 8 2008 Regis and Kelly aired Wedding Week 08. Kacy Hardenbrook and Jordan Edsall of Garrett Indiana were the lucky wedding couple who chose to have Taylor Hicks sing at their wedding. Taylor sang The Right Place and it was one of his best performances.

February 15 2008 Taylor performed on ESPN for the McDonalds NBA All-Star Celebrity Game.

February 22 2008 Taylor received award from Alabama Music Hall of Fame

April 27, 2008 Taylor sang the National Anthem at Talladega Super speedway in Talladega, AL. It was aired on the fox network.

May 10th 2008 Taylor’s performed at Ona’s Music Room with Spoonful James

May 13th 2008 Taylor performed at The Hannah Home Charity Event, Boots, Blues and BBQ in Alabama


May 15th 2008 Mary Colurso at Birmingham News. Alerted us to the fact that Taylor Hicks was going to be in the Broadway production of “Grease” in the Teen Angel scene that was made famous by Frankie Avalon singing Beauty School Dropout

May 16th 2008 Taylor was on the Today show to announce his upcoming role in Grease.

May 17th 2008 Taylor on cruise ship in Italy for a week. Performing and motivational speaker.

June 6th 2008 Taylor started the role on Broadway as Teen Angel in Grease.

Remember when the news first released? Emotions were everywhere. Some loved the idea, others hated it, still others thought Taylor was selling out and others thought he was going to ruin is career. Now look at all the success Taylor is having as Teen Angel.

June 13th 2008 Taylor performed Beauty School Dropout on Regis and Kelly

June 14, 2008 Pocket Full of Soul Documentary about the Harmonica, starring Clint Black, James Cotton, Magic Dick (from the J. Geils Band), Taylor Hicks (from American Idol) and John Popper (from Blues Traveler among others and narrated by Heuy Lewis, was screened at the Maui Film Festival. The film was screened as a "work in progress" and was not in competition, so it wasn’t the premiere.



June 27th 2008 The New York Post reported that Taylor Hicks was worth $150,000 a week in sales for the Grease box office.

July 4th 2008 Taylor performed on The Capital Fourth special aired on PBS. Also on the show was Hewy Lewis who also can play a mean harp.

August 12th 2008 Taylor released his CD Early Works. It was a Target Exclusive.

September 14th 2008 Taylor left the Broadway Production of Grease in New York.

September 15th 2008 It was announced that Taylor Hicks would star as teen Angel in a National Tour of Grease starting December 2nd 2008.

October 1 2008 Taylor Hicks.com was updated and improved. There you find videos, music and info related to Taylor Hicks. Fans signed up over at the Soul Lounge to join fellow fans of Taylor Hicks to chat about any Taylor news and happenings.

October 7th 2008

1 Taylor Hicks turned 32.

2 Taylor partnered with Artist2 Market to release his Indie, sophomore album. The release date was Feb 17 2009 but that dates changes.

3) In the studio with producer Simon Climie (Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Faith Hill)

October 9th 2008 Taylor announced he would be cross-promoting his record within the `Grease' tour. He announced he would be singing a song from his album during the show.

Oct 28th 2008 Taylor left audio blog from France where he was doing pre-production for CD with Simon Climie


November 8th 2008 Whomp at the Warfield can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com Release date of Feb 10th.

November 24th 2008 Early works can be purchased from outlets online such as Amazon.

December 12th 2008 Taylor said in a interview he wrote with people such as Gary Nicholson in Nashville and a couple friends of his, Wynne Christian and Alan Little.

December 2nd 2008 Today was the beginning of the National Tour of Grease at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Providence, RI

December 3rd 2008 Fox 13 in Tampa aired a brief interview with Taylor. In the video Taylor sang a line from one his new songs.

December 4th 2008 A interview with Taylor on 92 PRO-FM radio in Providence R.I In the interview Taylor says his album title is The Distance.

December 10th 2008 Taylor speaks with Tim’s Travels and tells of some of the names he is working with on his album. Simon Climie (Eric Clapton, B.B King) as his producer. Nathan East who is Eric Clapton’s bass player plays on the album along with, ,Abe Laborial Jr who played with McCartney and Doyle Brammel


December 28th 2008

1 My Rocket Science’s news scroll bar says Taylor Hicks new album The Distance 3/10/09

2 My Rocket Science has news that Taylor’s new music video will be their early January


December 30th 2008 Broadway TV posted a piece about Taylor in Grease. Had 3 amazing things to say

1 Hicks saved GREASE from closing on Broadway during the summer of 2008.

2 Cast-mates when asked what it was like working with him, the answer was time and time again, “Taylor is great to work with!”

3 Following Taylor Hicks while he has been involved with Broadway in 2008, we can say he was a great addition and titled him “Rookie of the Year.” We look forward to seeing if Hicks will contribute to Broadway in 2009.





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Indie Music

I have become very interested over the past couple years in learning more about Indie Music. The interest started when I discovered Taylor Hicks and realized that if it was not for American Idol I would have never heard his soulful voice and I would have never become some interested in music as I am now. I would have missed out on discovering other great musicians also. That brings me to another great Indie artist I discovered and interviewed around a year ago, Judd Starr I now consider Judd a friend and with following the careers of Judd and Taylor I am always reading about the Indie scene. A little while ago I read a article that I like very much.

It talks about the History of Indie music and a couple excepts I like a lot from the piece are these.

1) the Internet has provided a way to get the music out to fans that has never before been attempted. The result is accessible, quality music in almost every conceivable drama.

2) Two definitions of Indie music are
A) Established in the ’90s; an indie act is any one that is not signed on with the big three labels.

B) Another way to define the indie scene is in comparison to the acts signed by big labels, and played on the radio.

They go on to say that any recent listen to a local station should alarm music fans everywhere: the same artists or style of music is played over and over again, on every single radio station. Big labels laud themselves for being a mix, but the truth is there is a lot of R&B, even more pop, and a few dozen acts considered "rock" thrown in to appease those who do not know better. Fans who do not like the feeling of wanting to stick augers in their ears have turned en masse to the potential of the internet.

And the excerpt I like most is “ Perhaps now more than ever before, music has the opportunity to truly be judged (for the first time by both sides) by the quality instead of by the amount of sales.” I find this especially true for Judd Starr and Taylor Hicks and I am sure many, many more that I have yet to discover. But with Taylor and Judd I feel the quality of the music they make and the connection they have to their fans says it all. Read the rest of the article here.http://www.indieupdate.com/category/indie-music-history/





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Awesome Taylor Hicks Tidbits

Just a couple bits of cool info those who don’t follow the boards might be interested to hear about. First the website My Rocket Science http://www.myrocketscience.com/ has some info scrolling on their news scroll bar. It says for one Taylor Hicks new album The Distance 3/10/09

But another ‘Amazing” great bit of news is it says “Taylor Hicks video here in early January”. I have a feeling My Rocket Science will be getting a huge amount of page views this winter along with the site Artist2Market www.artist2market.com . Finally what we have all waiting so patiently for a new song by Taylor Hicks and a “MUSIC VIDEO”. 2009 is shaping up to be a great year.

Another bit of news. It appears American Idol may be going to give some face time to the Soul man. The new commercial airing on Fox now showcases a little of all the Idols including OUR man Taylor. It shows the clip when Simon asks Taylor why was there and he answers “ Because I want my voice heard’ Simons reply why? “Because I think I got one” It is about time and I hope this isn’t a fluke and more promotion of Taylor shows on AI during the Season.






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