Wayne Taylor and Appaloosa

Taylor, a North Carolinian, learned his first guitar chords at nine at an American Legion hall and later took a music degree at the Conservatory of Music of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He then joined Country Current as guitarist and lead singer and stayed for 21 years, part of a Navy career of almost 25 years that also took him to Japan aboard the USS Oklahoma City. The band, which had kept a bluegrass unit since Bill Emerson joined on banjo in 1973, passed to Taylor’s leadership when Emerson retired in 1993, and Taylor led it until he retired in March 2008. He also played with Emerson’s civilian band, Sweet Dixie.

By the end of 2008 Appaloosa was Taylor on guitar and lead vocals, Lester on mandolin, Dave Giegerich on resonator guitar, Mark Delaney on banjo and Kip Martin on bass. They were finishing a first album and had a September trip to Scotland on the calendar, and their sound was compared to the Washington, D.C., bands the Country Gentlemen and the Seldom Scene. Out in the Middle of Nowhere, issued by the band itself in September 2010, included “Ole Slew Foot,” “Secret of the Waterfall” and “Why Don’t You Tell Me So,” and a third album, It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Day, followed. In 2012 Taylor started his own Veterans Day weekend festival in Maiden, North Carolina, and that July the band made its third European tour, playing in Norway, at Nieuwkoop in the Netherlands, and in Scotland at Longniddry and the Guildtown festival, with Lester, Kene Hyatt on bass and Mike Scott sitting in on banjo. Lee Marcus, who had two spells in the banjo chair, left that year and was followed by Scott Walker.

Late in 2012 Taylor wrote “Praise His Holy Name” and built a Christmas record around it in a few weeks, with former Country Current bandmates Keith Arneson on banjo and Pat White on fiddle, Lester, Hyatt, Chris Sexton on viola, and Don Rigsby and Missy Armstrong singing harmony. In March 2014 the band recorded at Echoes Recording Studio in Sharpsburg, Maryland, with Arneson, Lester and Hyatt; Taylor’s Movin’ On, released that July, had eight of his songs alongside “Old Home Place,” “Scarborough Fair” and “Dark Hollow,” with Rickie Simpkins on fiddle and viola, Gaven Largent on resonator guitar, and Dale Ann Bradley and Steve Gulley singing harmony. Arneson, Taylor’s bandmate for 15 years in Country Current, rejoined on banjo in May 2017 when he retired from the Navy. In September 2019 the band played the Moniaive Michaelmas Bluegrass Festival in southwest Scotland and went on to Ireland.