Jimmy Taylor has passed

[Eric Krewson]

Bow maker Jimmy Taylor has died. A pretty legendary guy in a bunch of ways, both good and bad.

He has probably made more bows than all of us other bow makers combined, his business practices were in a word, atrocious. His generosity was legendary as he would give you the shirt of his back if he thought you needed it. He had a problem separating fact from fiction and told some pretty tall tales, as a friend I grew to accept this facet of his personality. You couldn't keep from liking him in spite of his flaws, unless you were on the receiving end of his shoddy business practices.

If you own one of Dan Quillan's bows from his later years Jimmy probably made it. He supplied a bunch of lower end glass lam bows for Martin, Nirk and others. He made thousands of hickory backed cherry, oak and hickory bows as well.

When I first met him  he was selling wood bows for $20 each at the local flea market. I later watched him make one of these bows in his shop in less than 15 minutes, pretty impressive.

Here is his obit:

Jimmy Randolph Taylor, 51, Russellville, Alabama passed away May 27, 2012 at his home. He was a member of the Historical Nature American Choctaw Tribe and the Church of Christ. Survivors include son, Mark Taylor; father, James Taylor; sister, Debra Handley. He was preceded in death by mother, Sue Loyd; grandparents, Ruby and Allen Dickens. A graveside service will be Saturday, June 2, 2012, 2 p.m., at Old Brick Cemetery in Ford City. Pinkard Funeral Home assisted the family.

[Pat B]

I didn't know Jimmy but I've seen litterally hundreds of his bow in the hands of kids and adults or for sale at shoots all over the S.E. US.
 Condolences to his family.

[ErictheViking]

Thats too bad, sounds like a character.  prayers for his family and sorry for your loss of a friend.

[ol dog]

Eric, I'm bad with names.  Did I know Jimmy?  Jerry

[Eric Krewson]

Jerry, he came to the earlier Hill shoots as a vendor a couple of times, hung around with Johnny Stelly but didn't shoot or intermix with general population. Johnny often drove to Jimmy's place to pick up wood for his hickory and oak bows. Pretty sure Jimmy had a sawmill.

[RidgeRunner]

I met Jimmy several times.
Everthing that Eric said about him is true.
Carried one of my Osage bows to a Indian Festival in Lawrence County AL. several years back.
Jimmy looked at it and told me everthing wrong with it.  Before he even said Hello.
Ticked me off.  But, The truth be told he was right on every point he made.

Met him some time later and struck up a conversation and set and talked with him for some time.
He gave me his phone number and told me to call and come over for a visit.

Called, Got answering maching, left message.  No return.
After leaving 10 or so messages over the next month, with no returns,  I quit calling.

Somewhere he learned to speak Spanish like a pro.  And he knew everybody.
Sorry to hear he passed.

David

[Eric Krewson]

Another Jimmy story;

I went to a big sawmill in Leighton Al to buy some hickory lumber, they only had logs and nothing sawed so I wandered around a bit checking things out. I went by a building, looked inside, there was Jimmy.

Jimmy was descended from a long line of furniture builders and here he was building custom, high end furniture in a back room at this sawmill. His story was, the mill hired him, payed him a salary and told him to build what ever he wanted to. He had several of his finished creations in the room and I have to say I was blown away by the exceptional quality of his work.

Jimmy's bows were at times pretty crude, sloppy glue lines and finish. This always confused me having seen what he was capable of that day at the mill.