Official Website: cassietaylormusic.com
Cassie Taylor was born in 1986 in Boulder, Colorado, where she was raised by her parents Carol Ellen Bjork and blues musician Otis Taylor. She has one younger sister. Despite being born during a period when her father was on hiatus from the music industry, he did expose her to blues music and teach her piano when she was young. She only became aware of his previous career around age 8 or 9. At around age 12 she began playing electric bass, impressing her father with a rendition of “Hey Joe.”
When Taylor was 16 her father asked her to tour as the bassist in his band. Since his usual bassist Kenny Passarelli had a conflicting schedule she joined his summer tour, playing for twenty dollars per gig. According to Taylor, her father didn’t build her up as a prodigy, but rather “I think I was just cheap child labor. Plus, he knew I wasn’t going to get drunk on the road or go missing. Some people have the fear of God in them. I had the fear of Otis.”
She toured multiple countries with the band, picking up vocals and keyboards as well. She went on to appear in eight of his albums, including lending bass and vocals to his 2007 album Definition of a Circle. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Blues Foundation.