Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez – Let’s Leave This Town

What do “Wild Thing”, “Angel Of The Morning” and Angelina Jolie have in common? If you answered Chip Taylor, you are right. Born James Wesley Voight, Taylor is the brother of the actor Jon Voight, thus the uncle of the apparently ex-Mrs. Billy Bob. As the author of the aforementioned, oft-covered songs, he was assured a steady income for the decade or so he forsook the music business to take up professional gambling (not much of a stretch when you think about it). The 1990s saw him return to songwriting and performing.

Let’s Leave This Town is a duet record with Carrie Rodriguez, a young singer/fiddler he discovered at Austin’s annual SXSW music festival. The CD shows he hasn’t lost a lick in his writing and is an excellent talent scout as well. Rodriguez, a tasteful instrumentalist with a charming, soulful twang, blends beautifully with Taylor on classics such as “Storybook Children” (co-written by Taylor and Billy Vera), as well as soon-to-be-classics “Sweet Tequila Blues” and the title tune (imagine Billy Joe Shaver dueting with Loretta Lynn). On “His Eyes”, they demonstrate how to do a big ballad without bombast, while “Extra” serves as a reminder that sex can still be fun.

“You Are Danger” is a good song that might have been better shopped to Bon Jovi, but I’m sure Taylor would agree that eleven to one ain’t bad odds. With the honest back-porch fun that infuses the performances, the deck is stacked heavily in favor of a must-have record.