Meet Brit Taylor, the Kentucky songwriter endorsed by Sturgill Simpson

Brit Taylor paid for her music career by scrubbing floors.

After a decade of honky-tonk shifts, stumbling projects and door-to-door Music Row campaigning, the Kentucky-raised country singer wanted to make music her way. She quit her publishing deal in 2018 and started a cleaning business.

With extra cash earned from late-night shifts tidying church basements, Taylor funded and self-released her debut solo album, "Real Me," in 2020. And when it came time to cut the follow-up, Taylor's long-earned investment in herself paid off with an opportunity to collaborate with two of Nashville's finest record-makers.

Taylor teamed with Grammy Award-winning artist Sturgill Simpson and longtime studio ace Dave Ferguson on her new effort, "Kentucky Blue." Co-produced by Simpson and Ferguson, Taylor cut the album at Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa, the home studio once operated by Country Music Hall of Fame songwriter "Cowboy" Jack Clement.

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Released via Taylor's own Cut A Shine Records and Nashville independent label Thirty Tigers, "Kentucky Blue" hits record store shelves and streaming services Friday. She celebrates the album release with a show Saturday at The Basement.

"I just do my own thing," Taylor, 33, said on a gray afternoon in late January as she lounged on a couch inside Cowboy Arms, feet from where "Kentucky Blue" was cut months earlier. Discussing the obstacles she crossed before the album, she added: "I don't want to be angry. I don't want to have a chip on my shoulder."

Making 'Kentucky Blue'

Taylor hails from Hindman, Kentucky, a small town miles from the so-called "Country Music Highway," an Appalachian cradle for some of the finest artists to take on the craft. Artists raised near this stretch of asphalt include Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, Tom T. Hall, Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers and Taylor's favorite — Patty Loveless.

She began singing as a child, taking to local Opry stages with help from her mother. In 2007, Taylor trekked to Nashville to study music at Middle Tennessee State University in nearby Murfreesboro. During the day, Taylor knocked on publishing house doors, hoping one would open for a teenager with big dreams. At night, she traded Kentucky Opry stages for sets at Tootsies, the downtown Nashville honky-tonk known for drawing beer-guzzling country music faithful.

"I grew up on a stage where I watched Patty, Dierks Bently, Brad Paisley, George Jones," Taylor said. "I get to Nashville and I'm singing at Tootsies, every night of the week. ... It was a shocker."

And on her first trip to Music City as an aspiring singer-songwriter, Taylor said she met the namesake of the studio she'd later enlist to cut "Kentucky Blue."

"I met 'Cowboy' at the bottom of the stairs," she said, gesturing to the entrance of the second-story studio. "'Cowboy' was so sweet. He listened to, like, a 10-song awful, awful CD that I had made in Kentucky, full of a young girl's songs about her first break-up. He was so kind."

Spoiler: She didn't get invited into the studio — yet.

Her opportunity came years later, when Ferguson offered to co-produce Taylor's sophomore solo effort with fellow Kentuckian Simpson. A Grammy Award-winning artist known for his genre-hopping collection of albums, Simpson cut a pair of releases at Cowboy Arms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Taylor received the news, "I almost wrecked on the highway," she said.

Thoughts begin swirling in her head: Is she a good enough songwriter? Will the opportunity fall through? And, if she's broke, how would she pay for it? But her self-doubt didn't stop her from holding on to a shred of hope.

"I feel like all my little guardian angels are walking with me, smilin' the whole time," Taylor said. "They're probably laughing at my when I'm throwin' my tantrums."

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As for when the album-making week finally arrived? Taylor was nervous, but quickly feel into a groove.

"I was a little afraid to speak up at first because I didn't know how it would be perceived ... you just don't know if you'll [feel respected] as a woman," Taylor said.

She added: "It was amazing. I don't know how many times [Sturgill] said, 'This is your record, what do you want? What order do you want it to go in? What songs do you want to cut?'"

'Insert their own story'

Listeners who drop a needle on "Kentucky Blue" won't hear a timid songwriter finding her footing in a new studio. Taylor entered Cowboy Arms with about 30 bare-bones demos, a selection she and the producers narrowed to a dozen recordings and, eventually, a 10-song album.

She channels her Appalachian roots on "Cabin in the Woods," a fiddle-drenched take on her countryside oasis. She embraces open-range country on "No Cowboys," a co-write questioning where to find real love in a world of Wrangler-wearing wannabes. With title track "Kentucky Blue," Taylor delivers a story on life after loss in a steel guitar-soaked ballad.

And on standout number "Love's Never Been Good To Me," Taylor embraces the time-tested Nashville sound with a crooning love song backed by piano and a string arrangement.

She sings, "Forgive me if I doubt you when you say you'll never leave/ It's just that love's never been good to me." Taylor said she co-wrote the song after meeting the man who would become her husband.

"That was a very real feeling that I had, when we first started gettin' together and trying not to self-destruct the entire relationship out of fear," Taylor said.

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After it debuts, listeners may discover "Kentucky Blue" while driving down the road, doubting what may come next in life. Or they may find it on a long night, cleaning the kitchen floor. No matter the circumstance, Taylor hopes they hear a familiar story in the songs.

"I hope they can insert their own story in there," Taylor said. "I hope they feel a connected to me and to the music with their own stories in the songs."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Brit Taylor's journey from cleaning houses to recording with Sturgill Simpson