Joanne Shaw Taylor (GB)

About

Discovered by Eurythmics' Dave Stewart at just 16, Joanne Shaw Taylor has spent the years since becoming one of Britain's most respected blues guitarists and vocalists. Her early albums White Sugar and Diamonds in the Dirt both cracked the US Billboard Top Blues Albums chart at No. 8, and she picked up back to back Best Female Vocalist wins at the British Blues Awards in 2010 and 2011. A career highlight came in 2012 when she played lead guitar in Annie Lennox's band at the Diamond Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace, where even a pedal malfunction worked in her favour: Stevie Wonder reportedly loved the cleaner tone it produced. Taylor's No. 1 album The Blues Album, produced by Joe Bonamassa and released through his Keeping the Blues Alive Records, cemented her status at the top of the genre. Her 2024 release Heavy Soul shows she is nowhere near slowing down. Primarily a Telecaster player, she favours a modified 1966 Esquire she picked up on Denmark Street, a guitar she calls Junior, and tends to tune down to E flat for that signature warm, slightly dark blues sound.