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Country music star Hank Williams was an early, prominent influence for James Taylor. This is made clear when listen to James' work. There are very obvious influences stemming from country music in general. His music as described in biographical article published by the Encyclopaedia Britannica was: "rooted in complex chord changes and influenced by Appalachian folk music, Hank Williams, and early soul vocalists." (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1998).

The same comparisons can be drawn from many of the late 60s and 70s folk musicians and folk artists to this day will highlight country music in their most important influences.

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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan also known as the Elvis of the east or the king of 'Qawwali' singing (a form of Sufi devotional music). His style of singing hugely impacted Jeff. Comparisons can be drawn between Jeff's ethereal almost religious style to Nusrat's own performances.

In an interview Jeff states: "Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the ten other men in his ensemble do not play music, they are music itself". His deep admiration of Nusrat led him to perform covers and even learn "proper Urdu pronunciation so he could better imitate the phonetic approximates of the music" (The Unlikely Bond between Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Jeff Buckley, 2022).

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Portishead vocalist Beth Gibbons drew inspiration from many of the great Jazz singers of the 50s and 60s. "Gibbons' vocals, which alternately evoked Billie Holiday's growl.....served as an anchor for the instrumental experimentation of Barrow and Utley (Ray, 2009). Notably from the likes of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. Gibbons makes these influences obvious with the way she phrases and sings her lines in an almost heartbreaking yet powerful female crooner type way. Gibbons power and presence as a front woman isn't reliant on being flashy or moving around on stage but instead caressing the microphone with eyes closed. Their music has definite ties to the world of jazz music.

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Portishead's sonic blend of genres is deeply rooted in their love of hip-hop, in particular Geoff Barrow the producer. They have been cited preaching their love for the Wu-Tang Clan. In an interview with Quietus, the band were asked to list their top 13 albums of all time. Portishead producer Geoff Barrow named Wu-tang's debut album "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)", as his number one record, describing it as “everything I want as a hip-hop fan” (Palmer, 2023). Their punk ethic filtered into the Portishead sound and crossed over well into the world of alternative music of the 90s and 2000s. More obviously, the link here is their use of a DJ scratching and mixing live in conjunction with the drummer to create a sample based hip-hop drum sound.

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Portishead's members highlighted their love of Morricone's compositions as a huge influence on their musical style. I think the style in which the band is able to create such a cinematic feeling of scale and emotion can be traced back to producers and composers like Morricone, Lalo Schiffrin etc.

In an online article for cuepoint, Mike 'DJ' Pizzo said “Geoff had a love of soundtracks. He was obsessed with [Italian composer] Ennio Morricone and all these things” (Mike “DJ” Pizzo, 2014)

The King of spaghetti western's influence on guitarist Adrian Utley is also apparent in his use of the Fender telecaster (very typical choice for country and blues style music) and his playing style incorporating lots of twangy single note melodic lines.

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Jeff's singing style was greatly inspired by Robert Plant. Plant's raw imperfect performances inspired Jeff and gave him the freedom to perform this way also. As he quoted in an interview "because of the way Plant sings, if you put them into a different musical setting, they would sound like R&B songs. With Led Zeppelin, everything was out of tune, and Plant sang wrong notes. But he was the one that showed me that there aren’t any wrong notes" (Rogers, 2013).

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Strong focus on lyricism and story-telling was clearly the biggest impact that Bob Dylan had on Jeff's work. Jeff strongly carried on the lineage of great lyricists in my opinion. Lyrics that could almost be read as poetry and other times more direct and obvious depicting a story or a feeling.

An online article posted in the Journal of Roots Music spoke about the artists Buckley admired and stated:
"Buckley was always self-conscious about his lyrical ability, and he highly revered the poetry of Bob Dylan" (Kukic, 2014). No Doubt Dylan has influenced so many songwriters of those times up until now and will moving forward.

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At first glance, James' music may sound like typical folk, however his influences can be heard in his music and stylistic choices when singing and arranging. A lot of the folk artists of the late 60s and 70s grew up not only listening to artists like Woodie Guthrie etc. but were also constantly exposed to rhythm and blues, early soul, gospel and African-American artists of the time. Ray Charles and was a specific early influence for Taylor. Writer Ann Powers wrote in a 2011 online article for NPR: "Taylor idolized Ray Charles growing up." (Powers, 2011)

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Their blending of hip-hop and breaks with alternative styles hugely influenced how I make music and started producing, blending samples and instruments etc. The cinematic nature of their music also conjures raw emotion which I have always tried to emulate.

A New York Times article highlights:
"The group became one of a handful associated with the sound writers called “trip-hop,” alongside Massive Attack and Tricky, acts that melded methodically slow breakbeats with murky atmospheres and floating melody." (Weingarten, 2019, para. 3)

Their contributions to trip-hop made me more aware of other artists which have ended up being favourites e.g. DJ Shadow, Unkle etc.

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One of the artists that spurred on my own enthusiasm for writing. I heard the cross-over of soul music filtering into his folk singer-songwriter style and really tried to emulate this blend in my own music. I was heavily influenced by the way he incorporated a wider variety of chords and more complexity to his guitar playing whilst pairing that with a very soothing and soft vocal delivery.

Although he has been critiqued by some for being bland, research into his past will show that his love of early soul music and RnB shaped his music which I can relate to in my own musical journey.

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An interesting influence of James Taylor is a style of music known as Appalachian Folk music. This genre dates back to the earliest era of country and bluegrass in the USA in the region of Appalachia. Traditional Appalachian can be traced further back to typical regions of the world such as the British isles ie: Scotland, Ireland etc. Old time fiddle music, hymns and ballads from these areas were crucial to the rise of the genres that came afterwards. In relation to Taylor's work, we can hear these influences in the way he crafts ballads using intricate guitar work.

The Music Museum of New England described his music as contemplatively delivering "a mixture of Appalachian ballad stylings, Hank Williams' Lyricism and early soul acts' vocal dexterity". (Monahan, 2022)

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His use of dissonance hugely influenced my Guitar playing and musical taste in my formative years. Many of his influences are the same artists I grew up listening to with my Uncle. His Dynamic range as an artist is what I find most amazing. His ability to go from soft to hard, loud to quiet so seamlessly. The ethereal nature of his tracks also largely influences what i listen to nowadays.