Kate Taylor

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This article deals with Kate Taylor, the folk singer and singer-songwriter. For other people of the same name, see Kate Taylor (disambiguation).

Kate Taylor (born August 15, 1949) is an American folk singer and singer-songwriter, originally from Boston, Massachusetts. She grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where her father was a medical professor at the University of North Carolina.

Taylor's four brothers, Alex, Livingston, Hugh and James, have also been musicians with recorded albums. (Both Livingston and James are still active musicians; James' career has been particularly successful.)

Taylor formed her first band at age 15 and signed a solo record deal with Atlantic Records four years later—her debut album Sister Kate was released in 1971. Her second album, the self-titled Kate Taylor, appeared in 1978, produced by her brother James and Lew Hahn. It was fairly well received, produced what was perhaps her biggest hit, a version of "It's in His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song)", which peaked at 49 on the Billboard charts.

The following year Taylor released It's in There, produced by Barry Beckett, which failed to reach its public. After this release Taylor took a break from the music industry for the next two decades, during which time she appeared sporadically as a performer, including an appearance on the Mark Heard tribute album Orphans of God and back-up singer for various other artists, not releasing another album herself until 2003, when she recorded Beautiful Road, a particularly personal album, dedicated to her manager and husband, Charlie Witham, who fell ill while she was recording the album and died shortly before its release.

In 2005, Taylor released Kate Taylor Live at The Cutting Room, a recording of a live concert made the previous year.