CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Late at night, in his bedroom in Yonkers, N.Y., James Voight used to sit up and listen to WWVA out of Wheeling. The station's 50,000-watt signal bounced off the clouds and came in clear through Voight's radio.

"I fell in love with that music," he said.

They didn't play country music in Yonkers. They still don't, but the music sparked something in Voight, led him to change his name to Chip Taylor and become a singer/songwriter whose life has wound in and out of music for decades.

The music led Taylor back to West Virginia recently to perform on the Nov. 8, 2009 "Mountain Stage."

Taylor is best known for his songwriting. Artists who've covered his songs include The Troggs ("Wild Thing"), Janis Joplin ("Try"), Juice Newton ("Angel of the Morning") and Waylon Jennings ("Sweet Dream Woman").

But he almost didn't go into music at all. His father was a professional golfer. He tried to follow him into the same field.

"Actually, I loved music and wanted to get in the music business, but I wasn't sure I could do it," he said. "I was a good golfer, so I turned pro."

A wrist injury took him off the green, so he decided to give music a try. Despite his obvious ability to pen hits, he didn't really fit in.

"I had running battles with the record company," Taylor said. "I needed Nashville support, but the Nashville people always wanted me to do cookie cutter stuff, and I refused to do it. I was on the outside -- more like alt-country today -- with Gram Parsons, Emmy Lou Harris and Willie Nelson when he finally decided to rebel."

He was an outlaw.

"I just wasn't as successful as the others were."

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Late at night, in his bedroom in Yonkers, N.Y., James Voight used to sit up and listen to WWVA out of Wheeling. The station's 50,000-watt signal bounced off the clouds and came in clear through Voight's radio.

"I fell in love with that music," he said.

They didn't play country music in Yonkers. They still don't, but the music sparked something in Voight, led him to change his name to Chip Taylor and become a singer/songwriter whose life has wound in and out of music for decades.

The music led Taylor back to West Virginia recently to perform on the Nov. 8, 2009 "Mountain Stage."

Taylor is best known for his songwriting. Artists who've covered his songs include The Troggs ("Wild Thing"), Janis Joplin ("Try"), Juice Newton ("Angel of the Morning") and Waylon Jennings ("Sweet Dream Woman").

But he almost didn't go into music at all. His father was a professional golfer. He tried to follow him into the same field.

"Actually, I loved music and wanted to get in the music business, but I wasn't sure I could do it," he said. "I was a good golfer, so I turned pro."

A wrist injury took him off the green, so he decided to give music a try. Despite his obvious ability to pen hits, he didn't really fit in.

"I had running battles with the record company," Taylor said. "I needed Nashville support, but the Nashville people always wanted me to do cookie cutter stuff, and I refused to do it. I was on the outside -- more like alt-country today -- with Gram Parsons, Emmy Lou Harris and Willie Nelson when he finally decided to rebel."

He was an outlaw.

"I just wasn't as successful as the others were."

Frustrated, he got out of the music business around 1980. He even tried his hand at acting. (His brother is Jon Voight; his niece is Angelina Jolie.)

Instead, Taylor became a professional gambler. By the mid-70s, he wasn't touring much and was gambling on the side. He just turned pro. He bet on horses and, for a while, counted cards -- until he was banned from casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas.

By then, he'd been at it for a few years.

"They knew I was a fairly big player, but nobody realized, back then, that the card counters could hurt them."

The casinos treated him like a high roller. They gave him free rooms and complimentary meals, all meant as an enticement to keep him coming around, waiting for him to lose, waiting for the chance to win their money back and take his, but it didn't really happen.

Eventually, the casinos were very polite, but firm. They told him not to play any more and he walked away.

"I never had my knuckles broke," he said. "I was never taken into the back room. Had I stayed, there was no question in my mind something like that would have happened. Atlantic City wasn't so bad, but when you were banned in Vegas, you didn't fool around. You just didn't play."

He stuck to horses, but in the early 1990s, while he was taking some time away from the track to care for his mother, he started singing again. Taylor gave up gambling (because he couldn't tour and go to the track regularly) and resumed his music career.

It's been a good run since. His latest album, "Yonkers NY" came out last week and is already getting nice attention from Americana and Adult Album Alternative radio formats.

"The album reflects my days growing up," he said. "It covers my musical influences I had in those days: rock ''n' roll and the country music they didn't play in Yonkers."  

Reach Bill Lynch at ly...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5195.