“This is a song I wrote a couple of years ago,” she says via Zoom from her Doylestown home. She performs on Sunday at Crocker Park as part of the Crocker Park Summer Concert Series. “I was sitting on it for a while. I knew I wanted to have a feature on it. I met Nick at college and had seen him perform and knew he was the best fit. I sent him the song, and we got it recorded in early 2024. I recorded drums, bass and guitar at the Rialto Theatre in Akron.”
Her friend Jonah Smeltzer played all the instrumental parts live for the tune, and Taylor did all the production for the synthesizers and the keys. She recorded her own vocals and Nick recorded his. And she then send the track her friend Keegan Ferrell in Nashville to mix it. Fred Miller did the mastering.
“It was a big team effort this song, but it turned out great,” says Taylor.
She even recorded an extended version of the tune that she hopes will appear on an album she aims to release sometime next year.
Her latest single, “The One for Me,” suggests her musical range. It comes from more of a country rock approach, mirroring influences such as Taylor Swift, Linda Ronstadt, Kelly Clarkson and Kelsea Ballerini. She wrote the song last year and recorded it earlier this year in Nashville with Ferrell.
“It was really cool,” she says of the recording experience in the Music City. “[Ferrell] has a small studio in his house that he built. It’s a small, intimate setting. It’s all good vibes recording with him. He did my single from last year called ‘No Girl Like Me.’ I worked with him before and knew he could bring the song to life. I took my mom to record with me, and she sings some of the background vocals.”
Taylor got her start in musicals and began performing at an early age.
“My mom is a music teacher,” she says. “I have been around music my whole life. Growing up here is a good. It’s a quiet, small town. I started studying piano when I was 5 and started singing classical music shortly after that. I did a musical theater production while growing up. I did my first community theater when I was about 7.”
She started writing country and pop songs when she was 13. In 2023, she released her debut, an EP she recorded at Kent State University at Stark as part of a music technology project.
She hopes to follow up that first EP with a full-length next year.
“I am working on trying to record more music to put out this year and into next year,” says Taylor, who performs as solo. “As the shows are winding down, I start booking my shows for next year. That keeps me busy in the fall. I hope to take time in the winter to record music and release music that I do more of the production for like ‘On Drugs.’ I want to work on that and find more people to collaborate with. I have another friend who raps, and we have a song we’ve been working on.”
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This article appears in Cleveland SCENE 10/8/25.