Chuck Kennedy of Whole Foods Market

“We had a great customer response to your performance, and I'd like you guys to have dibs on our bookings. In addition, I will contact you regarding cancellations or other opportunities. Sure wish there were more like you around.”

I totally enjoyed meeting you at the Volcano. Your enthusiasm is fantastic. I am enjoying your CD very much. In fact, it has not been out of my CD player in my car. Let me know when you are playing "in town" .

Smythe and Taylor's CD, “Maybe It’s Because I’m Missing You” includes many well-known local and regional guest artists. All the songs are well crafted and performed. Most enjoyable.

“I'm still listening while I'm waiting to take my turn mixing. I'm really enjoying it. Great song writing first and foremost. Absolutely wonderful. Your players and Jack, did a superb job of supporting your music. Way to go. Very Very Good.”

Got your CD this morning. Wow! I am impressed! Excellent songs, and a very nice job on the recording/producing end. Whoever engineered it has an "unbiased" ear. Let me know when you go back out on tour. I’d like to be your engineer.

What a show the two of you put on in the Mahogany Lounge! And what an honor to be responsible for TC performing for the first time in 'her hometown'. It was a pleasure to work with people who are such professionals on so many different levels. And just plain good people to boot! Thanks again TC for 'coming home' to Midland and to you Gary for accompanying her. We look forward to having you back!

Thank you for coming early and helping us with the sound system and for playing at the store. The music was great. You'll be at the top of my list.

Houston-based folk duo Smythe and Taylor is the featured artist at this weekend’s free Summer Lawn Concert show at the Museum of the Southwest. Sunday's show kicks off at 7:45 p.m. Audience members are encouraged to bring their blankets and lawn chairs and relax during the concert.

Smythe and Taylor returns to the venue after a successful performance here last July. The pair is comprised of two former oil company employees: Gary Taylor, who will retire from touring after the band's August dates, and T.C. Smythe, a Midland native who wrote “My Real Hometown,” about her days growing up in Midland.

Smythe and Taylor offer a wide variety of traditional and contemporary acoustic music, including originals, country, folk, rock, blues and bluegrass. The duo is known for their symbiotic harmony, humorous lyrics and 3D guitar playing. Smythe and Taylor have been together since 2000 and have seven CDs between them, including two brand new albums, a studio CD, “Come What May” and a live album made up of “field” recordings from Texas, Poland and England called “You Shoulda Been Here Yesterday”.

The duo has been nominated five times in the Texas Music Awards and has played in over 150 venues, from San Francisco to Atlanta, and from Warsaw to the Hague. Smythe and Taylor played the main stage of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma where their song “Hit the Road Again” won first prize in the national Woody Guthrie songwriting contest. They have recently returned from a two week trip to England, playing at the Guilfest music festival, as well as pub and house concerts.

“We decided to release two CDs simultaneously, for a few reasons,” Smythe said. “The two projects are significantly different, but belong together, like a diploid compliment (fraternal twins). The first CD, ("You Shoulda Been Here Yesterday") is a live recording that contains performances from six different venues from our 2007 tour through Poland, England and Texas. The songs are eclectic, and seemed to fit better on a live CD than on a more rigidly-themed studio record. The covers are obscure, and lean toward the funny side of life. Some of our fans from last year's lawn concert asked for these songs, and we are granting their wish on this record! The sound quality of each room makes the listener feel as if they had gone on tour with us.”

The second CD ("Come What May") is a studio product with session musicians and very strong production values. Most of the songs are original compositions, most of which are already award-winning. We hope to get it played on NPR's "Prairie Home Companion" radio show with Garrison Keillor. That would be a dream come true! It has songs that really make the listener think about what's really important in their lives.

"We didn't let it stop us, but the cost of gasoline did influence our decision to combine and move up the date of the releases," Smythe said. "In order to make the deadline for the European part of the tour, we recorded and mastered the studio record in only three weeks at White Cat Productions in Houston. The live record was already 'in the can' but had to be engineered and duplicated in just three days! Including duplication time, both full length projects were finished in under a month!

Taylor's retirement comes after his purchase of a home in Westcliffe, Colo. After the end of August, S&T will be pretty scarce, but not impossible to find. "We have a number of annual events that we'll always want to play, but it does force us to take time off and do more writing individually. The internet will become our co-writing medium, and we'll both have recording rigs in our homes," Smythe said. "Gigs like the Museum of the Southwest will always be on the schedule, as long as we're invited to play. House concerts will also become more of a staple for us, rather than nightclubs or restaurants.

Smythe, who lives in Houston, grew up in Midland, attended Midland H.S. and appreciated the opportunity to play in her “real hometown” (one of her original songs about Midland). "Last year, the show at the museum was just tremendous," she said. "Over 1,000 people came out." Smythe said she actually recognized some of her friends from high school, and is looking forward to seeing them again.

If the show on Sunday isn’t enough for hardcore fans, they’ll be happy to know Smythe and Taylor will appear Monday night at the Midland Hilton’s Mahogany Lounge produced by the folks at Promising Projects.

"We played this show last year and brought the house down. The bartender was in tears, and the patrons left in stitches. We really didn’t want to stop playing but they had to close the bar at 11 p.m. We plan to push management for 11:15 p.m this year," Smythe said.

For more background information and samples from the new CDs, visit the Smythe and taylor website at http://www.SmytheAndTaylor.com

by Graham Dixon
Midland Reporter-Telegram
Published: Friday, August 8, 2008 9:24 AM CDT

The quality of the summer concerts at the Museum of the Southwest increased considerably with the folk duo "Smythe & Taylor." These personable, talented musicians showed what two voices and two guitars can do when they are harnessed to great talent. The heat last Sunday was reminiscent of a Burning Man evening in Nevada. Much of the audience was quieter than normal before the concert began, as if talking would make them sweat more. Even the children were running a little less frenetically.

The duo started with "Rusty Old American Dream" -- a song that combines the gritty humor of old time country songs with the precision musicianship of folk singing. As in every song, every word was enunciated clearly. The duo harmonized with little apparent effort. In "West Texas Wind" the loneliness of being on the road as a professional museum brought a John Denver-like touch to the evening.

The surprising highlight of the night came with a very sweet song about dogs, "Great Dane," in which TC Smythe showed that she might have a second career as an animal impressionist as she 'talked' with the numerous dogs in the audience through various whelps, barks and howls. In other songs the impressions, which included an unfortunate person who has been just attacked by fire ants, did seem a little forced. Less is more with such additions to the music.

Humor continued with "You Should Have Been Here Yesterday," a song that anyone who has just missed an opportunity could empathize with. Taylor's award-winning "Hit the Road Again" was by turns funny and then moving in its story of a guitar sitting in a pawn shop that wants to be bought so it can be played again. The song reminded me of some of those in the movie "Toy Story" in which the toys lament their owners abandoning them. In the same way a guitar exists to be played. Taylor quite brilliantly evoked this simple truth.

The classic Patsy Cline song "I Fall To Pieces" was rendered with a pristine, powerful start and a crystal clear and yet gently flowing body to the song. As with many other numbers, Taylor brought a number of different styles to his guitar riffs, including a bluesy feel at the very end.

Perhaps inevitably the most audience involvement came in Smythe's song about Midland. "My Real Home Town" is in fact a strange, poignant love song. While it contains lyrics such as "two weeks from water, and five feet from hell," Smythe eventually sings that she in fact loves the city, despite its lack of physical charms. It seems that the beauty of a city, as with that of a lover, is in the eye of a beholder.

Smythe and Taylor's concert ended just as it seemed to be getting into full swing. That was a shame. We should all hope that their appearance at the summer concerts does indeed become a tradition, as Smythe suggested. Perhaps next year we can enjoy a full evening's set as a culmination of the season.

The summer concert series concludes with local favorites "The Shades" Sunday at 7:45 p.m.

Her musical style is simple guitar and voice, letting the songs themselves speak instead of huge production. 'A Spirit All Her Own' reminds me vaguely of Helen Reddy, but with a trill on the ends of some words. She's a good folksy guitar player with a fine down to earth lyrical blend. 'when I look at her, I'm really lookin' back at me / I'm remembering a child I used to know /though our differences are many, the similarities / tend to bring it home - she has a spirit all her own.' Ditto for Smythe.