Once, in the midst of a cross-country tour in the mid-1990s, Taylor and buddies in the band began listening to Joni Mitchell's "Hejira," one of several Mitchell albums that weds a songwriter's lyrical soul with a jazz sensitivity. "The songs on that album -- like 'Black Crow' and 'Refuge of the Roads' -- about being an artist, being on the road, just blew my mind," says Taylor. "The lyrics in those songs cleansed my soul . . . and they opened up an entire avenue of creativity in me."
While remaining true to his jazz and classical roots, Taylor began to build a music library stocked with lyric-driven artists: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Neil Young. He began to recognize the parallel harmonies in music and the written word. In Austin, he'd seek out folk singers at the Saxon Pub and Cactus Cafe. He began writing arrangements for vocalists such as folksinger Sara Hickman and jazz singer Suzi Stern.
"Will has an innate sense of bringing a song to fruition in the most beautiful way he can," says Hickman, who records frequently with Strings Attached. "It can be from a country song to rock song to a lullaby. It's not just one genre. The first tune Will ever arranged for me was an a capella lullaby I wrote for my daughter called 'It's Alright.' All l had really was the song in my mind and then I sang it into a tape recorder at Will's house. When I came back, he'd done this beautiful string arrangement to my melody, with a depth and lushness that brought me to tears."
Taylor knew the idea of mixing popular music with classical forms wasn't new. Leonard Bernstein had done it. Aaron Copland had done it. He knew, too, that mixing popular music with jazz forms wasn't new. Sting's solo career was built around the idea. In Austin, jazz guitarist Mitch Watkins has always been comfortable mixing his textured, compositional sensitivity with the pop visions of Joe Ely or Abra Moore. Most of all, Taylor knew that music in churches wasn't anything novel. The idea is as old as medieval Europe.
The magic was in bringing it all together, in a single vision. Why not, thought Will Taylor? Why not wed the worlds of music, in the name of creativity, in a Strings Attached concert series? "The only thing that surprises me," he says today, "is why someone else didn't think of it first."