Ed Taylor Collective

Ed Taylor Collective (The ETC) is the latest musical venture for Auckland, NZ based Country/Americana guitarist, Ed Taylor. Although Ed has been a guitarist for the better part of his life, including attending the Auckland University School Of Music, majoring in Classical Guitar Performance in 1996, he didn’t start writing songs until about 10 years ago. That addition to his musical quiver earned him a semi-finalist spot in the USA International Songwriting Competition in 2019.

After spending most of his musical career collaborating with others, he finally realized he wanted to do his own thing in 2019. “I wanted complete artistic control over my songs,” he said recently, “and I wanted to use the best musicians I had come across over my 20 years of being a professional musician in Auckland, to perform them.”

In 1997 Ed placed first in the Auckland Classical Guitar Competition. In the early 2000s, Ed studied jazz privately with some of New Zealand’s finest jazz musicians. He also spent time playing in bluegrass, folk, pop, and country bands along the way. “I grew up listening to Bob Dylan, Dire Straits and Paul Simon,” he recalled, “and as I have gotten older, I have found myself being drawn back to that style of music.”

For this new iteration of Ed’s music career, he’s the exclusive songwriter. “I then invite musicians I’ve played with over the years in to the project to do whatever is necessary,” he said.

Although Ed says he doesn’t have a title for his new album yet, he’s three quarters of the way finished with it. The first single just released called, “M&C Shuffle.” As you might have guessed, it’s a country line-dance song that Ed wrote and recorded at the beginning of 2020. “It came about after playing at the Howick RSA for a line-dancing crew called M&C Line dancing,” Ed recalled. “The name refers to Merylin and Catherine (M&C) who run the group and teach regular classes. I decided that it would be fun to write a song for the ladies; one they could choreograph a dance to; and then we made a video for it.”

To find out more, visit www.edtaylorcollective.com. Click here to listen to the full interview.