Singer-songwriter Laura Taylor may be best known for writing a smash hit for Diana Ross. That song, now the title track of her 2025 album, “Think I’m In Love” opens the album with style and you can hear why Diana Ross got a hit with the same song way back in 1981. Time flies, yet Laura Taylor does well by reintroducing the song with a sparkling new arrangement to fresh ears nearly 45 years later. Laura’s 6^th solo album, Think I’m In Love makes a good introduction to her unique vocal and compositional style.

Released on the Vegas Records imprint out of Las Vegas Nevada, Think I’m In Love is the opportune album to hear why Ms. Taylor remains a well-respected singer in the music world. Featuring arrangements and keyboards by Vegas Records head Uli Geissendoerfer, Think I’m In Love features a wide range of musicians. Although she has an impressive background in both pop and disco, on Think I’m In Love Ms. Taylor combines her love of sophisticated pop-jazz and with its slick sonic veneer, the 8 track album is the perfect setting for her seasoned vocals and compositional style.

“Lovelight” sounds inspired by the Bossa Nova sound of Antonio Carlos Jobim or the tropical sound of Martin Denny, while “One Of A Kind”, a retro-jazz track, is the kind of song Frank Sinatra would want to sing. The song also features shared lead vocals with Patrick Hogan. “Wedding Song” is a composition written by Uli Geissendoerfer, with lyrics by Ms. Taylor and shared vocals by Gary Fowler. “Verrazano” is a Taylor original that was inspired by the famous NYC bridge that links Brooklyn and Staten Island. “Verrazano” clearly displays her staggering vocal range.

Think I’m In Love comes to its end with the album’s lone cover of “Spring Can Hang You Up The Most”, a chestnut that dates back to 1955. A stellar lineup of original tracks, excellent backing musicians, co-lead vocals as well as a string quartet agreeably differentiates this album and sets it apart from other songwriter albums. Dreamy and impassioned vocal jazz by an underrated singer-songwriter Think I’m In Love is a most welcome return from Laura Taylor.

 

RMR SPEAKS TO LAURA TAYLOR

 

RMR: You grew up in the tri-state New York City area and you live in Las Vegas these days? How would you compare the two regions of the country? What do you like best about Las Vegas and what do you like about the New York City area and do you travel to and perform in other cities these days?

Laura Taylor: I was born in Connecticut and spent my youth in Watertown, NY, and Monroe, Ohio. I love the change of seasons, especially in upstate NY, and that is something I miss in Las Vegas. However, I never knew what “Purple Mountain’s Majesty” meant until I moved to the desert. At dusk, in the desert, the mountains often acquire a most beautiful lavender hue that is breathtaking!

Vegas is an amazing place to live. No state income tax! Weather is beautiful except for July and August heat. We have some jazz giants who moved here because years ago they could get great work and great money with a reasonable cost of living. We have some great recording studios here, too, like The Hideout where I recorded my latest CD.

My husband and I are very involved with the jazz program at UNLV and endowed a chair for jazz and commercial music currently held by Dave Loeb, an incredible musician and educator! I have not traveled much in the last few years, but I still dream of doing the great jazz festivals.

 

RMR: What was your early musical training like? I heard you studied opera so how did you get into jazz vocals? Who were some of your early musical influences? Also, you’re an excellent songwriter. Is it unusual for a vocalist to also be a songwriter, yet you were also influenced by classic songwriters, so who are some of your favorite songwriter of yesterday and today?

Laura Taylor: My early musical training came from my parents. My mother was a concert pianist and my father had a beautiful singing voice. I started playing piano and singing around the age of 3. My mother swore that my first word was ‘Toxcanini’ -baby talk for Toscanini! I heard the greatest classical recordings in addition to my mother’s beautiful playing, but I also heard the greatest jazz artists. My father worked as a disc jockey while going to college on the GI Bill. He played Ella, Sarah, Basie, Billy Eckstein, Peggy Lee and even interviewed Louis Armstrong. He began teaching me to sing at a very young age and taught me all the great standards. I was very fortunate and know that my parents instilled a love of music in me that has been a guiding force in my life!

In high school I had the lead in 3 musicals and while in high school my mother took me to one of the greatest teachers in the country, Robert Powell at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. The leading tenor in the Metropolitan Opera had been his student (John Alexander). I had the benefit of studying with Mr. Powell my whole senior year of high school and, after receiving a scholarship, my first year of college. I learned the Bel Canto method of singing which I still do today and I credit my continuing the exercises as the reason I have never had a node or polyp or vocal problems throughout my career.

Unfortunately, Mr. Powell died during the summer prior to what would have been my sophomore year. In the meantime, I had fallen in love with an album Nancy Wilson Live At Coconut Grove. I felt that I wanted to pursue jazz, not opera, and my father took me to a booking agent who told me if I could sing and play ten songs by heart I could audition for a job at the prestigious Van Cleve Hotel in Dayton, Ohio. I learned songs like “Take Five”, “The Girl From Ipanema”, “Laura”, and others which I still do to this day. I got the job and my career got started.

Thanks to my mother, I also learned to play the piano; I was a double major in college in piano and voice. I earned my living playing piano and singing for many years including having my own trio at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC for 8 years. It is the piano that has helped me so much in my writing, and why the last cut on my new CD is me singing and playing by myself. I would say that most, if not all, composers and arrangers have a good working knowledge of an instrument.

Here are just a few of my favorite writers: Rogers and Hart, Antonio Carlos Jobim, the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, Bill Evans, Ellington/Strayhorn, Vincent Youmans, Johnny Mercer, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Michel LeGrand… and many, many more!

 

RMR: How did you meet up with Uli Geissendoerfer of Vegas Records? What was it like collaborating with Uli and what did he bring to the table during the recording of Think I’m In Love? Seems like a cool label in Las Vegas dedicated to keeping the jazz tradition alive. What albums are your favorites on Vegas Records?

Laura Taylor: I had crossed paths with Uli for a few years mostly because of the jazz program at UNLV. He started his own record label, Vegas Records, and recently produced an album for Linda Woodson. I was impressed by the album and asked Uli about possibly doing one with me. He enthusiastically supported the idea and suggested we focus on my original songs. Uli definitely brought to the table his arranging skill, playing skill, his ability to hire the best players, schedule sessions and inspire me to achieve some lyric highlights by writing words to his song “Wedding Song” and words to my song “Verrazzano”. His label, Vegas Records, has provided a home base for many talented artists in Las Vegas, including the award winning UNLV Jazz Band One.

 

RMR: Think I’m In Love starts off with the title track. How did Diana Ross end up recording your track way back in 1981? She was such a major pop and R&B influence with The Supremes back when AM Radio dominated the music scene. What made you want to revisit the track nearly 45 years later and do you keep in touch with Diana Ross, has she heard your new version of “Think I’m In Love”?

Laura Taylor: To tell you how my song got to Diana Ross involves a little more background into my career. I discovered how much I love recording when I sang national campaigns for Buick (wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick) and United (fly the friendly skies). About that time, while living and working in NYC, I married, had two beautiful sons, and was asked to give up my career. I treasure my years as a young mother, but the marriage didn’t work out, so after six years I started all over again with custody of my children. Perhaps one of the reasons I am not more well-known is the fact that I did not want to travel that much away from my children. Being a mother was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, and I would not have traded that for anything. While married we had moved to Miami and after my divorce I began buying time at Criteria studios in Miami, Florida, to record my original songs. The owner, Mac Emerman, heard my demos and hired me to do studio work backing up such notable groups as Firefall on their Elan album.

Tom Dowd, the producer, gave me a platinum album for my contribution to that wonderful album. I was also offered the lead vocal on a song which became the theme song for the first national disco dance show “Disco Magic”. I grabbed the opportunity, and it charted top ten on the Billboard and Record World top ten disco charts. I was top five with “I Will Survive”, “Ring My Bell”, and “MacArthur Park”. The song, “Dancin’ In My Feet” was on Criteria’s label - (Good Sounds) and without a big record label to back it up, it did not cross over to much radio play, but I knew if the single did well the studio would follow it up with an album. I was ready with home demos of my own songs that I hoped would make it on the album. They did! Seven of the nine songs were my originals with two of them also making the charts - “All Through Me” and “Lady Scorpio”.

The Bee Gees were recording Spirits Having Flown (after their successful Saturday Night Fever album) - both at Criteria Studios. Somehow I wound up with their back-up band on my album. They were incredible, and I was in awe of Barry Gibb. One day while walking down a hall at Criteria, I saw Barry Gibb coming the other way. I had never met him and was prepared for a polite nod, but as he got closer I could hear that he was humming a song…MY SONG- “Sad Is The Song”! My first thought was “oh no! Did I hear his song somewhere and accidently copy it?” But he stopped me and all he said was “You should be writing all the time”. Turns out his keyboard player, Blue Weaver, had played my new recording of that song, and he liked it enough to hum it! Wow!! What a moment for me!!!  The disco album led to appearances on Midnight Special and other TV shows. All these things that were happening were glamorous and exciting, but weren’t  paying the bills.

I still kept working as a pianist/ singer and doing studio work. I did get to open for the original Village People and Bobby Caldwell helped me put my first band together and played on my album. He was a good friend and talent and we both shared a great admiration for Tony Bennett.

Criteria played a huge role in my career. The studio called me to do background vocals work for George Martin, the famous Beatles producer. A friend told me to take a demo tape of the new songs I was working on to the session. I did, but would not have just walked up to him and handed him a tape. At the end of the session he called me aside and asked me what else I was doing. When I said ‘writing songs’, he asked me if I had a tape! I couldn’t believe it! I gave him the tape and did not expect to hear anything, but a few days later he called me and told me I had a hit song on my tape. The song was “Think I’m In Love”. He thought Olivia Newton John should do it but he wanted to play it for her in person. Before that could happen, I got some backing to record a professional demo of it at the Hit Factory in NYC. I had also obtained a great lawyer, Allen Arrow, who played my tape for Diana Ross’s producer- who played it for Diana Ross. She recorded it and asked my permission to release it. It was supposed to be the first single off her Why Do Fools Fall In Love album, but at the last minute she changed her mind and came out with the title track. I was offered the B side of that single and being on the album, and I took it. The album went platinum and so did the single. My song, and Lionel Ritchie’s “Endless Love” were picked by the New York Times as being the outstanding songs on the album. I have not kept in touch with Miss Ross, I don’t think I was what she expected when I met her. Maybe she thought songwriters should be unattractive …I don’t know, but I was in awe of her and her beauty, but unable to get her to listen to any more of my songs. So “Think I’m In Love” got lost on the B-side. It had come so close, which is why I decided to do it again after all these years.

 

RMR: Are the other tracks on Think I’m In Love more recent or did you delve back into your catalog of songs during the album sessions? Also how many albums have you recorded and released? I was going to ask why you aren’t better well known at least by the music world in general? 

Laura Taylor: Other tracks on my new CD are mostly from my earlier writing. However, for this project I did write lyrics to the music of a song I wrote many years ago- “Verrazzano”, and I wrote lyric’s to Uli’s “Wedding Song”. This is my 6th jazz cd. I have also appeared on Steve Kuhn’s Porgy CD singing words I wrote to Joe Henderson’s “Isotope” and words I wrote to Steve Kuhn’s “Lullaby”. I have also been featured on UNLV Jazz Band One’s recordings over the past few years, and they have recorded two of my originals- “Spellbound” and “Lovelight”.

 

RMR: What songs on Think I’m In Love were the most fun and memorable to record and which were more challenging to record and can you tell us something about backing musicians on the album? Who put the band together? Did you choose the musicians?

Laura Taylor: Uli put the band together for the cd. The drummer, Tommy Igoe is well known in his own right. He has been on Grammy winning projects and worked with Dave Grusin. He also wrote the drum book for The Lion King.

Derek Jones,(bass), and Jake Langly,( guitar) are both working for Cirque Du Soleil in a show called ‘KA’.

Charles McNeal (saxophone), has worked and recorded with many famous people including Lyle Lovett and Roberta Flack. He is incredible!

Ramiro Nasello ( trumpet/ flugel) is an incredible musician on his way up!

All the musicians Uli brought on the project including the string players and percussionists were the very best. Uli, himself, added so much with his playing ( synths and piano), and arranging.

All the songs were fun. The duets were especially so with Patrick Hogan (an extremely gifted singer/ pianist/ and arranger) on my song “One Of A Kind”, and Gary Fowler on “Wedding Song”. I also got to sing backgrounds with Gary and Tamara Walker, both terrific singers!

 

RMR: You’ve been recording for many years. I was checking out some of your disco era albums including music from 1978. Would you say you’re a veteran of the music world? Was the disco era of the late 1970s a crazy period in music?

Laura Taylor: Yes, I consider myself a veteran of the music world. I have thrived in several genres of music as a singer, writer, pianist and performer. The 70’s music was really fun! But jazz has transcended eras and is the most rewarding of all

 

RMR: What are some of your favorite albums that you recorded? Tell us about your Johnny Mercer tribute album. You covered his song “Moon River” but he was such a brilliant songwriter that did so many things. Can you tell us about your tribute albums to Julie London and Chet Baker? Also are still writing music for commercials? Like the United Airlines theme?

Laura Taylor:  Love all the albums/CDs I have recorded. Thanks to the help of my husband/co-producer, David Mulkey, I have been able to record so many special songs with so many special people. Johnny Mercer was very important to me because he wrote the song I was named after “Laura”. His career was brilliant spanning so many decades!

I loved Julie London’s voice and style. I think she was underrated as a singer because she was so beautiful. I am very proud of the lyrics I wrote to Joe Lano’s song “Julie”, because I captured so many of her hit song tributes in the lyrics. Joe and I did 4 CDs with Joe, an incredibly talented guitarist and real friend.

I was driving my car in Miami listening to the jazz station and a voice came on that I’d never heard before. It so captured me that I pulled my car to the side of the road to listen. It was Chet Baker singing the Rogers and Hart song ”She Was Too Good To Me”. I melted! I then started to listen to the many songs he sang, not just played, and that inspired doing a tribute to him. Of all my CDs, I think I love this one best because my friend and one time mentor, Steve Kuhn, agreed to do the project and was able to get Eddie Gomez and Lewis Nash to do it as well. To be in the studio with those three giants and recording everything live was one of my most incredible musical experiences!

 

RMR: What plans do you have for 2025 and 2026 as far as writing, recording and performing as we approach yet another year? Will there be another Laura Taylor album at some point in the future and what kind of album would you like to record next?

Laura Taylor: I just concluded a successful weekend engagement at Las Vegas’s most beautiful jazz club - “Vic’s”. I have been invited to do Valentine’s Day weekend 2026 singing love songs. I can’t wait! On December 14^th I am doing a holiday concert at the Bootlegger for the Las Vegas Jazz Society, and I will be singing again with UNLV’s Jazz Band One on December 2^nd. I believe you are reviewing their latest CD which I am on as well as my song “Lovelight”.

Yes, I am planning more recording projects. I might try for a live recording at Vic’s of love songs, and I have always wanted to do a lullaby CD.

I am so grateful to have music in my life. There is always more to learn, more to express and more to share. It is the best friend I have ever had. The more you put into it the more it gives back. It is always there for you. It is the quintessential art form!