Smell The Wampum

Might have been a more seductive title than "Tunes From the Tipi" but who are we to judge. The documentary film about the life and songs of Kate Taylor is getting some good press. The film opened this summer on the Vineyard and has been making the rounds of small theaters. The Herald writes it up.

Kate Taylor - the Martha’s Vineyard singer/songwriter and sister of James - will be at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline Tuesday night. But she’s not giving a concert. She’ll be taking questions after the Boston-area premiere of a documentary about her life and music.

Taylor says the making of “Kate Taylor: Tunes From the Tipi and Other Songs from Home” was not planned.

“It fell into place without any thought that it’d be a documentary about me or my life,” the songstress said by phone from New Hampshire, where she was rehearsing last week.

The seeds for the film were planted when Taylor’s daughter, Liz Witham, and Witham’s husband, Ken Wentworth - both filmmakers on the Vineyard - asked to shoot some of her songs for their Internet music tv station, DocuTunes.tv.

But instead of heading into a recording studio, Taylor took to a American Indian tipi. It’s not such a strange stage for the musician, who spent summers with her late husband, songwriter Charlie Witham, in a Gay Head tipi during the ’70s.

“It was a luxury and a special part of my life,” Taylor said. “Sleeping in a tipi brought me good luck and good dreams.”

The documentary includes old Taylor family movies of a young Kate with her brothers - James, Livingston, Hugh and the late Alex - taken in their native Chapel Hill, N.C., and during their Vineyard vacations. It stresses the two things most important to Taylor: music and family.

“I think Liz wanted to keep it focused on the upbeat,” Taylor said. “There are parts of your life that are hard or sad or difficult, but it all leads to where you are at the moment.”

During the ’70s, Taylor made music that, like her brothers’, blended folk, rock and r & b. But family matters came calling...(more)