NESP Forum

Another fun surprise happened a couple weeks ago when fellow Big Yellow Dog writer Pat Mclaughlin introduced me to his co-writer up at the office, who happened to be Taylor Hicks. His season on American Idol was the only one I really watched on a regular basis, and I thought he was a really unique presence, so it was interesting to meet him in person!

And though McLaughlin may not be on the tip of the average music consumer’s tongue, he, for a couple of decades, has been many a musicians’ favorite musician. He’s even been called the greatest rhythm guitar player on the planet. He plays rhythm — he calls it “chunking” — with some venerated bluegrassers, including Tim O’Brien and Ronnie McCoury. And McLaughlin even got a gig as a rhythm player for the last round of the American Recording sessions with Johnny Cash. “That was probably the biggest reward for learning to chunk,” he says.

Besides being a revered under-the-radar artist — an anonymity he nearly escaped with a Capitol recording deal in the mid ’80s — he’s also a heralded songwriter with about 40 cuts. Not bad for a guy who doesn’t really do the Nashville songwriting thing. Delbert McClinton and Tanya Tucker had a hit with “Tell Me About It.” Steve Wariner had a #1 with “Lynda,” and Texafornian Gary Allan recently took McLaughlin’s “Songs About Rain” into the top five. Alan Jackson cut “It’s Alright To Be a Redneck,” and, just to show how deep is his soul, McLaughlin has even been covered by blues icon Taj Mahal.

"Groove and Soul, slink and stutter, groove and soul, wisdom and pain, groove and soul."
Peter Cooper, The Tennessean