Come with me listeners on a visit to the homey patch of “undisclosed farmland” occupied for some years now by one of Nashville’s most interesting and talented musical couples, Brit Taylor and Adam Chaffins. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. You’ll meet their goats and donkeys. You’ll hear their wind chimes. It’s a “little slice of heaven,” Brit says. They’re not a duo, though they contribute to each other’s music as co-writers and singers, not to mention a ton of moral support. Each is an artist in their own right bringing unique and completely captivating takes on the musical heritage of eastern Kentucky, where they both grew up.
As close as they were in age and geography back then, they didn’t meet until well into their journeys as aspiring Nashville songwriters and artists. Brit says at the outset of String #356 that the timing was right: “I always say it's fate that we didn't meet before we met, because I feel like we've both been plenty of different versions of ourselves, and I don't think young Adam would have liked young Brittany. And I don't think young Brittany would have liked young Adam. So, you know, that can taint an entire view of somebody when you don't meet them when they are fully who they are. So I'm really grateful that we met when we did.”
Before their paths intersected, Brit Taylor grew up in rural Knott County, near the famous Country Music Highway, US 23, the spine of the region that produced Keith Whitley, Loretta Lynn, The Judds, Chris Stapleton, and Taylor’s most apparent influence, Patty Loveless.
“It's just kind of a magical place. And when you grow up with music around there, you grow up with such a hope and such an excitement around who's going to be next? Who's going to be the next US 23 artist,” Taylor says. “I didn't really grow up singing in church. I grew up singing at the Mountain Arts Center, and if it hadn't been for that community and US 23 and that dream and that hope, I probably wouldn't have known that it was a possibility.”
Taylor’s crooked road led to Middle Tennessee State University and connections in Nashville’s songwriting circles paved by Appalachian culture maven and talent mentor Dub Cornett. As she described in a feature in 2021, Taylor parlayed an internship into a publishing deal a couple of years after her graduation. But the more attention she got from Music Row, the more she felt the industry’s unshakable formula of: “We love you. You’re perfect. Now change.” Artistic freedom and her natural voice surfaced through meeting David Ferguson, the longtime compatriot of John Prine, Dan Auerbach and Cowboy Jack Clement. She wrote with Auerbach and followed the path to producer Dave Brainard for her debut album Real Me.
Since then, Sturgill Simpson, himself a native of Taylor’s home region, produced her utterly lovely Kentucky Blue. Saving Country Music called that one “a pretty perfect specimen of classic country written from a modern perspective.” She and Adam, by then a married couple, decided it would be a cool project to adapt to a string band setting, and he made his producing debut making Kentucky Bluegrassed in 2024. After co-writing a batch of new material, Chaffins stepped up as producer on Taylor’s newest Land Of The Forgotten, an album as distinguished for its sound as its songs.
Adam came to town after playing bass in a church band in his home town of Louisa, KY, a bit more citified than Brit’s country home. After a music degree at Morehead State, he haunted a legendary weekly bluegrass jam at the 5 Spot in East Nashville and built a network that led to work as a sideman. He toured and recorded with the bluegrass supergroup the Deadly Gentlemen, where Adam’s impressive vocals came into focus, and with Asheville grass/country band Town Mountain. But it was with his first solo album, 2020’s Some Things Won’t Last, that his vision and original take on country music truly manifested.
Like many emerging artists of that year, Chaffins was denied his debut album support tours, but those were also the years he fell in love with Brit. They were engaged in 2021 and married the following fall. Their first child came along last October. Meanwhile he was accumulating new songs and finding a new vibe for them - a twangy, 70s-friendly funk that became the architecture for Trailer Trash, an EP that dropped just about one year ago. We hear that bold title track (it has a recitation!) and the beautifully constructed banger “Living Til My Dying Day.” Finally, we close the show with his newest single “Sugarcoat It,” and with Adam’s promise that there’s more to come from this thematic well.
Even with the 45-minute commute, Chaffins told me off mic that his relationship with Nashville is as close as ever. “I still feel very active. I think we both do. I'm still in town, writing songs and making records,” he says. “It's still the best city, pound for pound, in the world for a music maker to make music. And it's a blessing that it's really not that far from where we grew up.”
In a new video, Brit Taylor sings "Land Of The Forgotten" with Adam Chaffins on bass and harmony vocals, plus singer/guitarist/co-writer Adam Wright and fiddler Avery Merritt.
