The Geography of Grit: Joanne Shaw Taylor on the Soul of the Blues

October 21, 2025

When Joanne Shaw Taylor talks about the blues, she doesn’t sound nostalgic. She sounds alive in it, like someone who’s carried the music through every border crossing and sleepless night, and still finds something sacred in a 12-bar progression.

“I think there’s something to be said for places that see a lot of hard times,” she told me. “I think art comes from depression. Look at the blues — that’s what it was born from.”

It’s not a romantic sentiment. It’s a truth earned from miles. Taylor grew up in Birmingham, England, in a part of the country known more for factories than finesse. “It’s a very working-class industrial town,” she said. “Sabbath are from there. Half of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Judas Priest. There was a lot of creativity in the grit.”

That kind of place doesn’t hand you an easy start. It gives you perspective. It makes you work. It sharpens your edges. And when you finally pick up a guitar, whether you’re in Birmingham or Savannah, it makes the sound come from somewhere real.

Finding the Blues in a Factory Town

Taylor remembers her dad playing Big Bill Broonzy records at home, the sound of the needle catching the groove, the scratchy warmth of those old acoustic guitars. But it wasn’t until she saw Stevie Ray Vaughan on TV at 13 that everything clicked.

“I’d been playing classical guitar in school,” she said. “I knew I could play, but it felt very disciplined. Then I saw Stevie, and he just… spoke to us. There was something about that kind of playing, you could inject your own personality into it. That’s what I was looking for.”

In that moment, the blues stopped being American history and became something universal. It became a language for anyone who needed to bend their story into a song.

Her teenage years were spent chasing that tone, that honesty. By her twenties, she was in Detroit, forming a band, finding her footing in a country whose mythology she’d been dreaming about since childhood.

“I Thought the Deep South Hadn’t Changed Since the 1930s”

When she first came to the U.S., she admits, she had a cinematic idea of what it would be. “In my very young head, I thought I was going to see cotton plantations,” she said, laughing. “I thought the Deep South hadn’t changed since the 1930s. You’re an idiot when you’re that young.”

But reality was wider, louder, more complicated and in her words, more human. The America she found wasn’t the sepia-toned postcard of the blues. It was modern cities built on the echoes of it, still wrestling with the same contradictions that birthed the music in the first place.

What struck her most wasn’t nostalgia, but scale. “The vastness of it blew me away,” she said. “Coming from a small island, the idea that there was this huge country with no language barriers, no borders between states — it felt endless.”

That bigness of America still shows up in her playing the open-road tone, the endless horizon behind every riff.

Savannah on the Itinerary

When I caught her before her Savannah show, she hadn’t had the chance to explore much yet. “Last time I was in town, it was in and out,” she said. “But this time we’ve got a day off, and I’m excited. It’s on my bucket list.”/

She’d heard what most artists said about Savannah. That it is one of the oldest cities in the South, that it’s full of history, good food, and creative energy.

It’s that instinct to look past the obvious, that makes her fit right into Savannah. The same creative defiance that turned Birmingham’s smoke into sound lives here too. The blues isn’t just a genre here; it’s part of the city’s cultural bloodstream, a rhythm that still hums under the cobblestones and café chatter.

Literature as a Second Vice

And when she’s not thinking about guitars or food? Books. Lots of books.

“Literature is my drug of choice,” she told me. “We just got back from Europe — I found some great bookshops in York and Berlin. Spent way too much on oversized baggage bringing them home.”

So naturally, I gave her a short Savannah reading list: E. Shaver on Madison Square and Books on Bay downtown. Two temples of dust, stories, and Southern charm. Places where time slows down, just like her music sometimes does mid-set, bending a note until it breaks your heart a little.

The Blues Evolves — And So Does She

Taylor’s brand of blues isn’t locked in amber. “I’m kind of a mix of blues, rock, pop, and soul,” she said. “Younger generations are finding me through different songs, which is a great thing about the blues — it keeps changing while still facing its roots. It’s the root of everything. It’s rock and roll.”

That’s the thread that connects her to Savannah. The city’s own sound is changing — from the Delta soul played in back rooms to the modern cross-genre energy pulsing through venues like District Live. The audiences are younger, the styles blurrier, but the emotion is the same.

When Taylor takes the stage here, she’s not just another touring act passing through. She’s a reminder of what the blues has always been about — not sadness, but survival.

The Road Ahead

Between her shows and studio sessions in Nashville, Taylor’s planning a day with an old friend — producer Dave Cobb, who’s now based in Savannah. “I’m going to see his studio, see what he’s got going on down there,” she said. “There’s quite a thriving music scene, and I kind of want to tap into that.”

Before she packed up for soundcheck, I asked what she’s most looking forward to here. She didn’t hesitate.

“Honestly? Just walking around,” she said. “Savannah makes me think of towns like Charleston — laid back, beautiful, full of history. I just want to see it, eat something good, find a bookshop, and get a feel for the place.”

That’s the thing about Joanne Shaw Taylor: she’s built for the long game. Her music isn’t about arrival — it’s about motion. Each show, each city, each song is another mile in the story.

And Savannah — with its own bruised beauty and creative grit — feels like one of the few places in America built to understand her.

Because here, too, art comes from the hard times. It’s hammered out of pressure, like steel in Birmingham or rhythm in a back alley off District Live. It’s the geography of grit — and that’s where the good stuff always comes from.

Joanne Shaw Taylor plays
District Live October 25^th.
Ticketmaster.com