Gene Taylor’s Sacrifice

From Wikipedia:

[[ Gene Taylor (July 2, 1952 – February 20, 2021) was an American musician.

Taylor began his musical training as a drummer at age eight but two years later he had picked up both the guitar and his initial piano skills from boogie-woogie pianist-neighbours. Around the age of 16 he began working with some of the big names in the West Coast blues scene including Big Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker. In the mid-seventies he joined the James Harman Band and had a stint as pianist for boogie group Canned Heat between November 1974 and May 1976. From 1981 to 1984 he toured with The Blasters, and in 1986 finally recorded his first solo album, Handmade. His The Return of the Formerly Brothers, recorded with Amos Garrett and Doug Sahm in 1987, won a Juno Award the following year for Best Roots & Traditional Album.

From 1993 to 2007, Taylor played with The Fabulous Thunderbirds amongst various other projects. He recorded an eponymous second solo album for Pacific Blues in 2003 partly accompanied by James Harman and Bill Bateman. This album included a version of “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie”.

Since 2007, he was based in Belgium, playing and recording with Fried Bourbon, CC Jerome’s Jet Setters, Dave Alvin and Jo’ Buddy. He toured as the Gene Taylor Trio, with drummer Nico Vanhove, and the guitarist Bart De Mulder. He played at the Brussels Boogie-Woogie Festival of 2012, which took place at the Théâtre St Michel on November 24.

On February 20, 2021, Taylor’s housemate found him dead in his bed in their home in North Austin, Texas. The cause of death was unknown, but is believed to have been related to the house having been without heat in the dead of winter due to the statewide power outages caused by the 2021 Texas power crisis. ]]

From the Houston Chronicle:

[[ WASHINGTON – Former Texas governor Rick Perry suggests that going days without power is a sacrifice Texans should be willing to make if it means keeping federal regulators out of the state’s power grid.

“Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” Perry is quoted as saying. “Try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is take your eye off of having a resilient grid that keeps America safe personally, economically, and strategically.” ]]