HOOSIER HOT SHOTS museum present Gil Taylor's page

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Meet... The HOOSIER HOT SHOTS
GIL TAYLOR
Bass, crooner

Gil Ossian Taylor, a Hoosier from Alabama, replaced Frank Kettering as the bass player with the Hoosier Hot Shots. When you watch the movies, it's Gil back there on the bass. In Cowboy Blues it was Gil up front with the guitar crooning The First Thing I Do Every Morning.

Gil's son, Gil Jr., takes it from here.
Yes, dad had a beautiful voice. He was also accomplished on the guitar and bass. He told me that when he was just a kid he couldn't afford a guitar, so he made a crude wooden cutout with strings and frets drawn on it. He used it to practice the fingering so that when he finally got a real guitar he knew all the main chords. Gil joined the Hot Shots in Chicago, toward the end of 1943. As you know, they were on the National Barn Dance. He met my mom around that time. She was a telephone operator, and he made so many long distance calls on her shift that they soon recognized each others voices. They engaged in friendly banter, and then some flirting, and he finally invited her out. Soon after that they were married, and I was born in September, 1944. "The boys," as family and friends referred to the group, moved to L.A. to make movies. They all settled in the San Fernando Valley. The Taylors started out in a trailer on Riverside Drive in Burbank. It was unlike any trailer park in the world in that it was full of people connected with the Hollywood entertainment industry. The boys toured all around the country. They did live shows at movie theatres showing their films, and of course they played clubs, fairs, and other gigs. They were on the railroads so much they got to know all the porters and conductors by name. And of course they went overseas to entertain the troops for the USO. Eventually, we bought a house in Burbank, and coincidentally my son and his family live just four blocks from that house today. My mom still lives in the Valley, too. She's in Reseda. It's hard to believe many people still remember the Hot Shots after all these years. They were sort of a novelty act, along the lines of Spike Jones and his City Slickers. The success of the Hot Shots was a mixed blessing for my dad. Gil was a talented musician and singer who aspired to do more serious material than "Yes, we have no bananas." And occasionally the boys did give him opportunities to show his skills as a crooner. But too much of that would detract from the wacky antics of their act.

We asked Gil, Jr., about the post HHS career of his Father. He continues...
By the late 50's the boys weren't much in demand anymore. Oh they'd get a gig from time to time, maybe a golf tournament, where they could play the course and then entertain at the award dinner, but they didn't make enough to live on. Hez, Ken, and Gabe had made better investments than my dad, and since dad was the latecomer to the group he had always earned a smaller share. So they could afford to take a gig now and then just for the fun of it, while my dad had to find a steady job. He had a gift for electronics and made a living selling and repairing amplifiers, organs, and other such gear. Nights and weekends he played with other groups at all sorts of events, from Disneyland to wedding receptions. He also taught himself to play the organ and developed the most remarkable technique for playing big band music, emulating all the instruments, hands and feet flying across the keys and pedals...Amazing.

Your old curator adds...
Gil was featured solist in a number of the Hoosier Hots Shots movies, Mutual Broadcasting radio show and on television. His singing style reached a new audience for the Hot Shots. Gil's rendition of Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You) with Sally Foster and the Hot Shots stayed on the Billboard country charts for 10 weeks making it to Number 3 (#12 on the pop charts).
From the family archives, a little trivia; around the house Gil was called Gib. Even more trivia; Gil's middle name was a family "keep it going" being the name of Gil's Mother's Brother.