Songwriter Chip Taylor brings retrospective to Birchmere

Famed songwriter Chip Taylor who wrote such classic hits as “Wild Thing,” “Angel of the Morning,” and countless other tunes, was hoping his concert this week would be a family affair. But it’s not actor Jon Voight — brother of Taylor whose birth name is James Wesley Voight –who can’t make the gig. It’s Barry Voight, an internationally known volcanologist, who had to bow out for work in San Francisco.

“Barry is the guy who invented the formula that tells them when volcanoes will erupt, so he’s often needed at different places,” Taylor said. “It would have been so much fun [for the three of us] to get together, kibitz together and tell stories … But Jon will be there.”

Taylor’s just-released album “Yonkers, NY” lends itself well to the reminisces of the brothers Voight. The two-disc set basically puts the 1950s-era childhood of the brothers to music; one disc intertwines Taylor’s remembrances and vignettes with the music, while the other is solely music.

The project developed almost by happenstance when Taylor was recording another album and the song “Charcoal Sky” came to him; he wrote it within 5 to 10 minutes and completed the remainder of the songs within about a week.

“I didn’t intend to write a retrospective album,” he said. “Memories came as flashback kind of things, with me remembering when Barry and I ran away from home …or I was back with mom and dad at the train station. After about three or four days I forgot about the other project. When I get something that feels really good to me, I keep playing it over and over.”