"It's completely the opposite [of what it was]," says Sonnier. "I consider him a friend. If we have a problem, we can sit down and hash it out instead of carrying it around and letting it grow into something bigger than it really is. I think our relationship has come full circle."
Now that he's back in town, presumably for good, Taylor says he wouldn't mind fixing a few more busted friendships and laying the foundations for new ones. Possibly, he could even make a fresh mark on a Houston music scene crying out for some direction.
"I find myself very comfortable in defending this city," says Taylor. "People say you have to move to Austin or Los Angeles to be successful, but I'm here to say that it can be done in Houston. It's ripe and ready. Okay, so there's not a scene like Seattle or Deep Ellum. But I couldn't care less about that."
Taylor is the first to confess that he's made many adversaries over the years, and that he's burned some bridges beyond repair. He'll also tell you that Texas is where he belongs -- it's where he was raised, and it's where he feels the most comfortable. Taylor made this fact known rather eloquently a few years back to an old enemy who'd been bashing his reputation from afar in New York.
"Somebody recommended that I sue the guy, but I'm a Texan, so I wanted do things my way. I picked up the phone and called him," recalls Taylor. "I simply said, 'You don't know what kind of Texan I am. I may be the kind of Texan who'd kick your ass for what you've done. But you'd have to get on an airplane and come down here to find out.'
"And I hung up the phone."
Living out a long-latent personal fantasy with his new improvisational jazz/rock/ whatzit trio, Moons of Jupiter, may have something to do with Taylor's recent personal rejuvenation. In the past, he always shied away from the spotlight -- as far as he was concerned, too much emphasis on him took the attention away from his bands. That desire to work quietly behind the scenes kept Taylor, a talented guitarist and keyboard player, off the stage for decades. Call it a fear of public scrutiny or just plain modesty, but whatever you call it, for Taylor, suppressing that urge to perform was downright unhealthy.
"I had this musician in me," he says, "and it was withering away and getting sick."
Fronting a recent Moons of Jupiter show at Ovations, Taylor moved smoothly from guitar to piano to organ as classically trained cellist Max Dyer and much-in-demand percussionist Ray Dillard presented a dizzying variety of musical challenges. Taylor met them all with a wide grin and surprising ease for a man unaccustomed to the stage.
"Sam was always on the outside; I really encouraged him to be selfish and do what he wanted to do," says Dyer, who spent three years with the Houston Symphony and is now a cellist with the Houston Ballet Orchestra and Houston Grand Opera. "I could tell he was a frustrated performer who was sort of living a vicarious life through his bands."
Taylor won't argue with that assessment.
"I've been playing since I was three," he says. "It's always been the most natural thing I've ever done.
