Tut Taylor Passes

We are saddened to report that legendary Dobro player Tut Taylor has passed. Learn more about Tut in our Traditional Artist Directory.

Here is a fitting tribute from The Tennessean:

Tut Taylor, “The Flatpickin' Dobro Man” who played on John Hartford's groundbreaking LP “Aereo-Plain” and helped open Nashville bluegrass hot spot The Old Time Pickin' Parlor in the early 1970s, died Thursday morning at the Wilkes Regional Medical Center in North Carolina. He was 91.

Robert Arthur Taylor, Sr. was born in Milledgeville, Ga., on Nov. 20, 1923. His parents reportedly paid the woman who delivered him in collard greens. He grew up in a musical family, and as a child he played the mandolin. He started learning how to play the Dobro in his early teens after hearing Bashful Brother Oswald play the instrument on the radio.

Unlike other Dobro players, who use fingerpicks, Mr. Taylor used a flatpick.

“He did everything different,” said longtime friend and Dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas. “He held the bar in an unorthodox way and he used a flatpick, but he was a guy who could keep up (with other musicians). He could play all the rolls that three-fingered players would do, but with a flatpick.”