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= Michelle Taylor = Michelle Taylor (born August 25, 1962) is a British blues rock  and country guitarist, singer and songwriter best known for her unusual playing style and extensive knowledge and use of Blackstar Amplification. Since 1973, Michelle Taylor has made a professional career of music having toured all over Europe as a session player. In the early years she did this playing drums (and under a different name). In the later years she moved over onto guitar as her main instrument.

Early Life
Michelle She grew up in the north east of England in the quaint picturesque village of Trimdon. She started her career playing drums at age eleven when she joined her first serious gigging band playing for charity for patients in the various wards of a local Winterton hospital, before that having only created music together with a couple of friends from Sedgfield comprehensive school where she attended. At this point in time it was only drums that she was interested in and she took lessons to read drum music from drummer Adrian Tilbrooke a well known professional session drummer from the north east of the UK.

Around this time Taylor began playing professionally with a number of popular local bands such as the Frenchie rock band and Gibsons country band. Taylor also performed shows with Bobby Thompson, Lulu, and Elvis tribute artist Dean Soloman among many others, and even spent time as the resident drummer at the Trimdon Village Working mens Club playing 5 nights a week as session drummer for many of the artists performing there.

Taylors skill on the drums at such a young age got her noticed, and it was at this time that a booking agent (Mike and Margaret Story Entertainment) called and offered her work on upcoming European tours as a session drummer for both British and American country artists performing on many of the top festivals and TV shows of the time together with artists such as Kay Adams, Ray Pillow, The Mercey Brothers, Mary Miller, Marike Johnsson, Gordie west ( The official Calgary cowboy ) and many others.

Guitar
During her touring in the late 1980's Taylor had acquired an old nylon string guitar which she had bought for the sum of £10 from a local musician and proceeded to teach herself how to play it. Being left handed she had turned the guitar upside down commenting that "it felt more comfortable this way" and began learning chords from the Elvis 40 greatest hits chord book, however no one had told her that as a left handed player she should reverse the string order of the guitar. It wasn't until a year or so later that this was pointed out to her but by this time she said that she "had come too far to change" and decided to keep the strings the way they were.

It was from this unorthodox approach that she was able to develop her playing style, and this unusual way to play also brought her attention from other guitarists. Very few guitarists play this way, but other well known guitarists that do are Albert King, Doyle Bramhall II, and Eric Gales.

Taylor had been inspired by many of the country guitarists she had met while touring and began listening to recordings of the hottest players of the time such as Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs and Albert Lee, however her favourite guitarist and inspiration had become Ray Flacke a British guitarist (who she became friends with in later years) had played on the album Highways and Heartaches by Ricky Skaggs.Highways & Heartaches (Ricky Skaggs album)

Career
In 1986 Taylor moved from her home in the UK and took up residence in Sweden after having started a relationship and eventually getting married there. Taylor recorded a country album "Cant Take It With You" which was available on cassette, and later she released the CD "Old Enough To Know Better". It was at the time that she was offered a recording contract with Swedish record label Frituna and recorded her first recording on a big label. The CD single was entitled "Wait Until Tomorrow" and reached #6 on the CMR (Country Music Radio) European chart in 1998 and performed on festivals with a number of other artists such as Joey Tempest, Dileva, Thomas Ledin among others.

During 2013 Taylor put together her own Elvis themed show and toured with it in many of the leading concert houses and Theaters around Sweden and from the shows success was inducted into the Swedish Nostalgia Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at number 160. https://www.radionostalgi.se/intagna.html

Influencer
Taylor started adding the occasional video of her playing style onto youtube and in a short time had not only a lot of attention towards her playing style but also towards the amplifiers, guitars and effect pedals that she was using to get her sound, and this led to many people asking about the Blackstar Amplifiers and products that she was using which were not so common. In a short space of time Taylor became the "woman to ask" about Blackstar products in many of the Facebook groups and online forums etc so much so that she was receiving many posts, comments and private messages about them online and also when using them onstage during her performances.

Taylor create an online Facebook group dedicated to Blackstar Amplifiers ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/blackstaramps) which quickly grew in members. Shortly after this she was offered an official endorsement with Blackstar and her bio can now be found on Blackstar's official endorsed artist page (https://blackstaramps.com/featured-artist/michelle-taylor/).

At the same time the renowned British guitar brand Gordon Smith Guitars approached her about using their guitars exclusively which she now does and is officially endorsed by them. In April 2023 Taylor announced on her personal Facebook profile (https://www.facebook.com/MichelleTaylor.Blackstar) that she will be working closely together with Gordon Smith Guitars on an official Michelle Taylor signature guitar.

In the months following her initial endorsement from Blackstar a number of other brands of music equipment wanted to have her help promote their brands and Taylor is now officially endorsed by brands such as Wampler Pedals (https://www.wamplerpedals.com/artists/#artist-36529) Mad Professor Amplification (https://www.mpamp.com/eu/blog/category/artists), Free The Tone (https://www.freethetone.com/en/artists/detail49/) Flattley Pedals, Hardy Pedals, and a number of other brands of music equipment, many of which can be seen on her official website at https://michelleguitar.wixsite.com/michelle.