Paul H. Taylor & The Montara Mountain Boys
"Lonely For You"
by Johanna J. Bodde


                                                                   

PAUL H. TAYLOR & THE MONTARA MOUNTAIN BOYS "Lonely For You" (Broken Dish Records)   www.brokendishrecords.com and www.cdbaby.com/cd/paultmmb "Some folks actually believe that we live in a shack on top of Montara Mountain and only come down to play music. That's a great story. I kind of believe it myself," according to Paul H. Taylor. The truth is somewhat less romantic. These "older young people" have recorded the CD, which contains an amount of ten well-considered tracks, in San Francisco. Starting out with their "extremely limited budget" in a garage converted into a studio, after that working in another two studios in the course of the following two years. Singer-songwriter Paul thinks that a little thank-you for everybody's patience is owed: "I'm sure they got tired of hearing about the "new" album that never seemed to be finished." They've made a good job of it in the end, this quartet plus a handful of guesting musicians. The title track is a catchy countrysong with dobro, Paul's nice slightly Irish accent sounds appealing. With number two "Tiffany Eyes" adorned by the mandolin of Nick Evanson, the quarter falls. In "Owl And Monkey Blues" the dobro is replaced by that interesting National Steel, "Little Dogies" sounds like old-time western and "Mix The Whiskey" is a cheerful little Jimmy Buffett-type of drinking song on a solid base of drums. "Over You Yet" - broken heart as the subject - is just beautiful and then they do it uptempo: "What's a countryboy doing playing in a rock & roll band", to end with the only cover "Home On The Range", I sang that in school when I was ten years old! A modest but varied piece of work, this album, there's fine singing and fantastic playing, hopefully it will find its way to the traditionalists, so there will be some more dollars available for the next project! Is there an exciting story coming with the picture of the dilapidated, deserted Stage Stop? --- Written by Johanna J. Bodde. Dutch original of this review previously published on Real Roots Cafe, The Netherlands. =====