Chip Taylor

American singer/songwriter, born 21 March 1940 in Yonkers, NY. Died March 23, 2026.
Brother of actor and uncle of .

Born James Wesley Voight, he recorded as Wes Voight in the late 1950s before taking the name Chip Taylor and concentrating on songwriting. His best known compositions are “Wild Thing”, a number one hit for The Troggs in 1966, and “Angel Of The Morning”, first a hit for Merrilee Rush in 1968 and later for Juice Newton, as well as “Any Way That You Want Me”, “I Can’t Let Go” and “Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)”, recorded by Janis Joplin. Further songs were recorded by Waylon Jennings, Anne Murray and Cliff Richard.

In the early 1980s Taylor left the music business and worked for about fifteen years as a professional gambler, concentrating on blackjack and horse racing. He returned to recording in the mid-1990s with the album “Hit Man” and went on to release a long run of albums with a reflective, roots-oriented sound, many of them on his own label Train Wreck Records and several in collaboration with Carrie Rodriguez. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016. His final album, “The Truth And Other Things”, was released in 2025.