Taylor is amazing. He has the most amazing throwback song we've heard in years, and he's like a breath of fresh air in the AI competition. He's some strange cross between Joe Cocker, and Ray Charles and he sings soul music straight out of his soul. Have you heard his version of "Georgia on my Mind"? It's incredible. He'll have to sing that on the show closer to the finals.
The big secret is he doesn't only sing soul music. He's not a niche artist. With his band he sings a wide variety of pop with a soul-edged tone. Check out what little we saw of "First Cut is the Deepest" and "Ain't No Sunshine".
Powerful stuff. Tonight he sings Elton John's "Levon". That's a superpowerful evocative ballad that is part of his band repertoire. It's ambitious to go after Elton on that classic, but with his voice he could probably pull it off extremely well.
As for me, I've never watched any reality show before this year. Not Survivor, not AI, or anything else. I got hooked to AI in January through my daughter's watching it. Now I can't get enough of hearing Taylor. He's quirky, and strange, and phenomenal. He's on the brink of superstardom. The yahoo buzz is real. There's a huge grassroots fan movement that's sprung up to push him further up in the competition. As Simon Cowell is now admitting, Taylor is going to go far - very far indeed.
He rocked "Levon" last night. Incredible.
One last thing is he's deeply religious and he supports the military. Sounds like a 'red-stater' to me. Alright.
Go Taylor!