Musician and on-time manager for Festival Records during its highly infliential early days. He published an account of his time there in 1970.
Ken Taylor was the artist and repertoire manager for Festival Records from 1955, and was the driving force behind Festival's support for local artists playing local music. Despite admitting he didn't even like rock'n'roll, he was vital to its growth in Australia. Before he was hired by Festival, Taylor had worked selling records at McDowell's, a Sydney department store, and had conducted two music shows on radio stations 2CH and 2UW.
Largely due to the efforts of Taylor, Festival was the first local label to sign Australian rock 'n' roll acts, including Australia's "Big Three" of the 1950s - Johnny O'Keefe and the Dee Jays, Col Joye and the Joy Boys, and Dig Richards and the R'Jays. Taylor wrote the lyrics and music to many pop songs. As 'Kay Taylor', he rearranged the song 'Barefoot Boy' by Helen Grover, and was attributed as co-writer.
Festival was sold to News Limited in 1961, and although Taylor became a director of the new company, he left after clashes with the new management. He later became radio station manager of 2GB in Sydney.
Australian Writing and Rock Music affiliation: manager, lyricist, songwriter.
