The virtuoso guitarist Martin Taylor MBE first came to prominence in the late 1970's through his collaborations with the legendary violinist Stephane Grappelli, and now tours the world's concert halls with his dazzling live performances.

He began playing at the age of four when his father, bassist Buck Taylor, gave him a small acoustic guitar as a present. A totally self taught guitarist, he learned to play by listening to his father's records and trying to imitate what he heard. Seven years later he was playing in local bands and gained the respect and admiration of professional musicians who were amazed by the young boy they called "The Guitar Wizard".

Although inspired initially by the Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, it was to be piano players, most notably Art Tatum and later Bill Evans, that caught his imagination and set him on the path of developing his own individual style of solo playing.

In 1978 he made his debut album TAYLOR MADE, and the following year received a call from Stephane Grappelli inviting him to play on a series of concerts in France. Shortly after those concerts he joined Stephane on a coast-to-coast tour of the U.S, including New York's Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. It was the beginning of an eleven year collaboration which took in numerous world tours, and over 20 albums including recordings with Nelson Riddle, Michel Legrand, Yehudi Menuhin, Peggy Lee and several film soundtracks including the Louis Malle movie MILOU EN MAI and DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS starring Steve Martin and Sir Michael Caine.

Alongside his work with Grappelli, he was also pursuing his own solo career and in 1987 had great success in America with his Los Angeles recorded album SARABANDA.

In 1993 he made his first solo album for Linn Records ARTISTRY, which was No.1 in the HMV charts for six weeks, establishing him as one of the most popular and biggest selling acoustic guitarists in the UK.

The following year he formed his group SPIRIT OF DJANGO. Their first recording included their version of Robert Palmer's JOHNNY AND MARY, which was used on the famous cult TV ads with "Nicole-Papa!" for the Renault Clio.

In 1999 he signed a recording contract with SONY MUSIC, making two critically acclaimed albums, KISS AND TELL and NITELIFE, which showed the many sides of Martin Taylor both as a guitarist and composer.