After a one-year hiatus, Kate Taylor will return to play her annual Vineyard show this summer, on August 14 and 15 at the Aquinnah Town Hall, beginning at 8 p.m. The musician’s nephew Isaac Taylor will join her on stage to play a set. Ms. Taylor has been coming to the Vineyard since she was a child, eventually moving here full time. The landscape has influenced her greatly, she said.

“If I was a plant, I would want to be planted here,” she said by phone from her home in Aquinnah. “It’s my natural habitat.”

Ms. Taylor will be playing original songs that tell stories of the Vineyard, but her childhood in North Carolina will be making an appearance too. She will play some Appalachian folk, country, R&B, blues, gospel, rockabilly and rock and roll.

“The great thing about living in a university town like Chapel Hill was how we got to hear so many different types of music,” she said.

But Ms. Taylor credited two specific performances with fully igniting her love of music. “When I heard James Brown and when I heard Otis Redding, I said that looks like fun.” Eventually she took the stage to have her own fun, while learning about the power music has to connect people.

During the Viet Nam war years, music was one of the most potent mediums of communication, she said. “We all listened to the same songs on the radio.”

The musician hopes her show will remind Islanders of what’s most important.

“I hope they feel pride in their home and the people that live around them. I hope they feel connected to the place and to each other.”

Like living on the Island, performing can be a type of communion, Ms. Taylor said.

“In its best moments it’s a real shared experience. We rise together.”