Julian Taylor
- Country, Roots
Award-winning, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Julian Taylor has been part of the musical fabric and landscape in Canada for two decades. Taylor enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2020, when his second solo acoustic album, The Ridge, earned more than five million plays on Spotify, praise from press worldwide, and airplay from America to Australia to the U.K. Loaded with soulful Americana and country twang, the album was produced by Taylor himself and Saam Hashemi, and was recorded at The Woodshed in Toronto. In addition to winning Taylor Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, The Ridge was also nominated for: two JUNO Awards (Contemporary Folk Album of The Year, Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year), the Polaris Prize Long List, a Summer Solstice Indigenous Award (Contemporary Folk Album of the Year), a Canadian Music Week INDIES Award (Indigenous Artist of the Year), and an additional Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination in the English Songwriter of the Year category. The nominations and awards kept coming in 2022, with Taylor winning best male artist in the International Acoustic Music Awards and scoring five Native American Music Award nominations. In 2023, Taylor received a nomination in the Country Music Association of Ontario Awards in the Roots Artist of the Year category, a 2024 JUNO Award nomination in the Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year category and a further nomination in 2025 for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year for Pathways, for a total of five JUNO Award nominations.
Taylor is a major label veteran, Toronto music scene staple, and musical chameleon. His versatility as a songwriter is
signature; one minute he’s onstage playing with his band spilling out electrified rhythm and blues glory, and the next
he’s featured at a folk festival delivering a captivating solo singer-songwriter set. Formerly associated with the band
Staggered Crossing, he has continued to record and perform as a solo artist and has released 12 studio albums since
2001. With his songs have been placed in such TV shows as “Haven,” “Private Eyes,” “Kim’s Convenience,” “Degrassi:
The Next Generation,” and “Elementary.” He has had an album on the long list of the Polaris Prize in Canada and has
charted on several Canadian and Indigenous Music Charts. Two songs from The Ridge album, the title track “The Ridge,”
and “Human Race,” went to #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown, while the Julian Taylor Band song “Back Again” hit #3 on the same chart.
Taylor is as explosive and captivating a live performer as you’ll ever see. He’s toured Canada and the U.S. countless
times, sharing the stage with the likes of Serena Ryder, Blue Rodeo, William Prince, AHI, Rodney Crowell, Keb’ Mo’, and
has performed at the Festival d’Été de Quebec, the Mariposa Folk Festival, Summerfolk, Ottawa BluesFest, Winnipeg
Folk Festival, and more. Taylor was extremely honored to perform at not one but two Olympic Games, in Salt Lake City and Vancouver.
Taylor’s currently on tour in support of his new music, with confirmed dates in the UK, Canada and the US. With a live
show that always wows audiences, Taylor caught the attention of Jeremy Vine of BBC2 last year at his show in London,
who proclaimed that Taylor is “an incredible, profound, thoughtful, musical genius” on the social media platform X.
