Pete Feenstra chatted to Joanne Shaw Taylor for Get Ready to ROCK! Radio.  First broadcast 31 August 2025.

Journeyman Records [Release date 06.06.25]

‘Black & Gold’ is Joanne Shaw Taylor’s 10^th album and it’s a defining roots rock release, as she confidently moves on from the rock/blues hamster wheel to embrace more Nashville friendly elements.

There’s plenty of salient melodies, subtle harmonies, catchy rhythms and with the exception of a closing cover by The Faces, memorable hooks.

It would be unfair to call this a formulaic album as there’s enough diversity, quality playing and even welcome bursts of frisson in her solos, and yet sometimes her best efforts seem dialled into destination Nashville, on a handful of songs that sound like something Rascall Flatts might have already written.

It also feels like she’s aiming at an audience demographic closer to her producer Kevin Shirley’s age rather than her own.

The title track for instance, is an object lesson in re-conditioning a catchy cover into the perfect vehicle for her timbre and guitar playing abilities.

She’s excellent on the opening ‘Hold Of My Heart’, which is one of two impressive co-writes with Phil Whitfield, as she ushers in a roosty album with an acoustic-into-electric country twang, glued together by Sav Madigan’s accompanying violin.

It’s a jaunty clap-along song with a snappy hook that rolls right along without gathering too much dust.

The Americana influence also provides her with the perfect service stop between blues, country and potential commercial acceptance.

Her belated gnawing guitar solo restates her rock credentials in a perfect mirror of Nashville’s penchant for well crafted songs with power solos.

Perhaps the real triumph of this album is that it stays one step away from sounding a little too contrived, while simultaneously suggesting she’s moving purposefully forward.

For example, the prosodic ‘Summer Love’ manages to give the album an uplifting feel, despite the use of an old seasonal changes metaphor.

Then there’s the poignant ‘Who’s Gonna Love Me Now’, a weighty song given a synth based arrangement which evokes the 80’s pop approach of The Cars main songwriter Rick Ocasek.

The sledge hammer rock of ‘I Gotta Stop Letting You Let Me Down’ is pure Kevin Shirley and sounds as if the producer might have argued for this song in the set list to offset the soft rock approach.

It gives the album a shot of energy with a maelstrom of layered guitars, weepy slide, crashing drums, Hammond stabs and a double helping of Joanne’s muscular guitar breaks.

Her sterling performances and the A-team production makes the songs as good as they could be, though subject wise there’s not a lot of emotion to hang on to, apart from some loosely aggregated relationship song.

‘Black & Gold’ refashions her musical identity with broader brush strokes, including a greater attention to song writing.

She impresses on the reflective, mid tempo and subtle funk of ‘All The Things I Said’, and then delivers the album highlight on a delicious second Shaw Taylor/Whitfield collaboration called ‘A Grayer Shade of Blue’.

It’s a delicious subtle blend of a piano-led motif, acoustic guitar and a spurned lover narrative.

If you wanted to bottle her potential crossover appeal, this would be the song.

She reverts to her earlier blues rock template on the riff-driven ‘Hell Of A Good Time’, which is bolstered by some energetic organ and her own gnawing solo.

In contrast on ‘Look What I’ve Become’, she works hard to overcome a lumbering balladic feel with a confident vocal and defiant solo.

And so to a wistful finish without a chorus, on a cover of The Faces ‘Love Lives Here’.

A surprising choice for an American sounding album, she steps up to the plate with one of her very best vocal performances, suggesting she is enjoying her wider musical remit. ****

Review by Pete Feenstra

GRTR! Greats (September 2025)

JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR
2025 BLACK & GOLD UK TOUR

BATH, THE FORUM
WEDNESDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2025
Tickets: https://bathforum.co.uk/whats-on
The Forum, 1A Forum Buildings, Bath, BA1 1UG

https://bathforum.co.uk

YORK, BARBICAN
THURSDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2025
Tickets: www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-new
Paragon Street, York, YO10 4AH
www.yorkbarbican.co.uk

WOLVERHAMPTON, WULFREN HALL
SATURDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2025
Tickets: www.thehallswolverhampton.co.uk/events
North Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1RD
www.thehallswolverhampton.co.uk/wulfrun-hall

EASTBOURNE, DEVONSHIRE PARK THEATRE
SUNDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 2025
Tickets: Trafalgar Tickets
8-10 Compton St, Eastbourne, BN21 4BW

https://trafalgartickets.com/eastbourne-theatres-eastbourne

LONDON, CADOGAN HALL
THURSDAY 9 OCTOBER 2025
Tickets: https://cadoganhall.com/whats-on
5 Sloane Terrace, London, SW1X 9DQ
https://cadoganhall.com

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