Having made at least half a dozen exceptional albums between them as the 1970s unfolded, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne had ensured the ongoing artistic credibility of the singer-songwriter genre, their poetic, often introspective lyrics expressing hopes and concerns of both a personal and political nature.
Their observations, attached primarily to acoustic guitar melodies of folk-rock orientation, had been embraced by an audience seeking not just meaning in a post-Woodstock, pre-Watergate world, but also an antidote to the concurrent rise of countless hard rock combos whose stock-in-trade was volume and grandiose virtuosity. The heavy metal hordes were happy to crack a nut providing there was sledgehammer to hand, Black Sabbath, for example, nobody’s notion of subtle.
So with the thinking left to the likes of Taylor, Mitchell and Browne, they continued making musical statements that could be pithy and profound (all three capable of such within the same song), albums by Browne and Mitchell seldom not extolled by the music press, while hands down Taylor was the most successful in terms of sales and chart placings.
Yet while his offerings kept appearing on best-seller lists, a couple of patchy releases, ‘One Man Dog‘ (1972) and ‘Walking Man‘ (1974), provoked a backlash from the critics, those fulsome in their praise of ‘Sweet Baby James‘ (1970) and ‘Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon‘ (1971), now lamenting a career perceived to be in decline.
But in 1975 Taylor, by now having been married to fellow songsmith Carly Simon for two years, recovered much of the lost ground with the excellent ‘Gorilla‘, only for the critical sands to shift again when ‘In the Pocket‘ (1976) was viewed as mediocre fare.
In the same year Boston-born Taylor, by now 28, saw his contract with Warner Bros expire but rather than re-sign accepted a lucrative offer from Columbia Records, his former label and the artist himself sharing in the profitable parting gift of ‘Greatest Hits‘ – this diligently assembled compilation going on to sell twenty million copies worldwide.
Not to be outdone, James and new backers Columbia were also about to share in a bonanza. His first album for them ‘JT‘ (June 1977) returned huge sales figures and met with widespread positive reviews, some commentators declaring it his best work since breaking through with ‘Sweet Baby James‘ seven years before.
Indeed this, the eighth album of his career, has much to commend it (Taylor’s 1968 self-titled debut, recorded in London for The Beatles Apple label, showed abundant potential, but sank without trace amid record company chaos and the artist undergoing treatment for heroin addiction).
Peter Asher, who doubled as long-serving manager, returned to handle production duties for the first time in four albums and having recently added pristine clarity to the soft-rock recordings of golden voiced songstress Linda Ronstadt, brings a clear ambience to proceedings, the dozen tracks, ten Taylor originals and two covers, all unfailingly polished and precise.
The cohesive, well-crafted sound that moves with ease through mid-tempo radio friendly rock, piano ballads, a country lament, even an a capella number, is aided in no small way by Asher using a tightly knit crew of musicians, all of whom had long experience of working with the man at the centre of things.
In moving away from the wide array of session players and big-name guests who populated his recent records, Taylor (acoustic guitar) is found fronting a top-notch ensemble consisting of Danny Kortchmar (guitars), Leland Sklar (bass) Russell Kunkel (drums) and Clarence McDonald (keyboards). Kunkel, Sklar and Kortchmar could be found listed on his album credits as far back as 1970, the latter having known and played with Taylor since they were teenagers.
There are some star turns, on occasion Ronstadt and wife Carly bring their respective harmony vocal talents to bear, while saxophone ace David Sanborn makes his presence felt on the fast-paced ‘Honey Don’t Leave L.A.’ Otherwise it amounts pretty much to an in-house effort, Taylor’s well-versed troupe sounding more a tightly-bound band than battalion of sessioneers.
The sheen Asher was keen to apply is immediately evident on opening cut ‘Your Smiling Face‘, an upbeat, charming piece, containing overtones of where Buddy Holly had once been and Fleetwood Mac were now.
Given its engaging hook, it could hardly fail in giving Taylor a major hit single (climbing to number six on the U.S. charts), the track decorated by bold electric guitar work from Kortchmar as the writer expresses his affections against the added accompaniment of an understated string arrangement:
‘Whenever I see your smiling face/I have to smile myself/Because I love you, yes, I do/And when you give me that pretty little pout/It turns me inside out/There’s somethin’ about ya, baby, I don’t know.’
While an altogether enjoyable listen, bearing much more substance is ‘Here We Are‘, a touching piano-based ode to his wife whom he mentions by name (‘So though I never say that I love you/I love you/Darling I do/Carly, I do,’), Taylor contemplating their union in relation to the entire cosmos:
‘Drifting through time and space on the face of a little blue ball/Falling around the sun/One in a million, billion twinkling lights/Shining out for no one/In the middle of the night/Here we are/Sparks in the darkness/Speaking of our love/Burning down forever and forever.’
Taylor refines a touching lyric to encapsulate his devotion, (‘And though we are as nothing to the stars that shine above/You are my universe, you are my love‘), the song while full of sentiment never mawkish or sentimental. Often underrated as a singer Taylor delivers a tender vocal, the tranquility further reflected in the unobtrusive string arrangement and restrained pedal steel guitar contribution of Dan Dugmore.
The first cover is an energetic reading of the Kortchmar composition ‘Honey Don’t Leave L.A.’ The witty lyrics amount to a plea from the narrator for his lover not to dump him for European climes, ‘That big chateau/Where you wanna go/In the south of France/Going to end our big romance.’ Fattened up by the incisive sax breaks of Sanborn, through the foreseeable future it would become a staple of his concert repertoire, Taylor performing an even more sprightly version during the 1979 ‘No Nukes’ concert at Madison Square Garden.
Having come up with a joyous remake of the 1965 Marvin Gaye hit ‘How Sweet It Is‘ (To Be Loved by You) on ‘Gorilla‘ two years earlier, for the other track from an outside source Taylor goes back even further in reviving ‘Handy Man‘ a big selling 1960 single by R&B vocalist Jimmy James.
In his interpretation Taylor takes a softer approach than James (who co-wrote the song with Otis Blackwell), his delicate phrasing atop of a rich, resonant melody so pleasant on the ear it won him a Grammy award for Best Vocal Performance of 1977. This silky rendition also gave Taylor another hugely successful 45, reaching number 4 of the Billboard charts.
As a writer Taylor is found in sombre frame of mind on ‘Another Grey Morning‘ where he sketches some disconcerting domestic scenes through this acoustic guitar ballad.
His poignant, almost conversational vocal depicts a woman seemingly lost within the isolation of everyday life, (‘She hears the baby waking up downstairs/She hears the foghorn calling out across the sound/Repetition in the morning air/Is just too much to bear/And no one seems to care‘), her frustration relayed when Taylor reports her saying:
‘She said “Make me angry/But just make me cry/But no more grey morning/I think I’d rather die.’
The country-waltz that is ‘Bartender’s Blues‘ at once comes across as more jovial in delivery, but the honky tonk connotations of the old west cannot disguise a solemnity at the heart of the lyric:
‘Now I’m just a bartender and I don’t like my work/But I don’t mind the money at all/I see a lots of sad faces, and lots of bad cases/Of folks with their backs to the wall.’
Dugmore contributes atmospheric pedal steel and anytime Ronstadt is heard giving background vocal support are never less than welcome moments, life from the serving side of the counter drawn as a dispiriting experience:
‘I can light up your smokes/I can laugh at your jokes/I can watch you fall down on your knees/I can close down this bar/I can gas up my car/I can pack up and mail in my keys.’
Side one closer ‘Secret O’ Life‘ has Taylor in peak form as a songwriter. His smart, but not overcomplicated wordplay offers encouragement in embracing the world around us, these ruminations attached to a serene melody built upon concise acoustic guitar chords:
‘The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time/Any fool can do it/There ain’t nothing to it/Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill/But since we’re on our way down/We might as well enjoy the ride.‘
With McDonald providing fine support on electric piano, this lightly lilting track moves along to sublime effect. The mystery attached to our existence has left great minds perplexed, Taylor content to take things as they come:
‘Now the thing about time is that time isn’t really real/It’s just your point of view/How does it feel for you?/Einstein said he could never understand it all/Planets a-spinning through space/The smile upon your face/Welcome to the human race.‘
After ‘Handy Man‘ has opened side two, Taylor goes for an immediate change of pace with the somewhat lurid road-tale, ‘I Was Only Telling A Lie‘, the backing track infused with electric guitar motifs not out of place on a Rolling Stones cut from say the ‘Goat’s Head Soup‘ era.
Taylor growls out the vocal in affected manner to enhance the prickly mood (‘Baby-bootie/Juicy-fruity/
Truck-stop cutie/Roadside-beauty/I’m in love with you/Hope it don’t last too long‘) and if Kortchmar doubles for Keith with the guitar riffs, Kunkel and Sklar (brilliant players in their own right), have no lack of fun in the roles of Watts and Wyman.
If the Stones are evoked there, Taylor is recorded to sound like a one-man Simon & Garfunkel on the leisurely ‘Looking For Love on Broadway.’
Taking the lead on acoustic guitar he observes city life (‘Watching the town go down/Broadway’s a river to me/Fat fish in the big city sea/Taxi cabs, limousines, submarines‘), through three verses and less than three minutes Taylor uses this likeable, if insubstantial piece, to voice the loneliness of a stranger in a crowd, ‘Had my fill of self-pity/I brought all my blues to the city/Guess I’m pressing my luck in the middle of town tonight.’ Yet like the character he is describing the song tends to amble without warranting much attention.
Superior in every way is ‘Terra Nova‘ a song similar in structure and theme to ‘Lighthouse‘ from ‘Gorilla.’
Once more Taylor expresses yearning to be on a craft (‘Show me the ocean/When shall I see the sea?‘) gliding through the waves, wife Carly providing harmonies and receiving a co-write credit for a serene composition – the vessel in question referenced in the second verse:
‘We were sailing on the Terra Nova/Sailing for the setting sun/Sailing for the new horizon/May this day show me an ocean/I ought to be on my way.’
Altogether it is a spirted, uplifting piece. The vocals of Taylor and Simon are exquisite while the musicians, again led by James and the warm sound McDonald generates on electric piano, offer another resounding account of themselves. While rueful of those he is leaving behind, ‘I miss my lovely mother/And I love my lonely father,’ the writer is nevertheless keen to set sail:
‘Ought to be on my way right now/Stepping on the boat with a lump in my throat/On my way right now.’
After the longest track on the record comes the shortest, ‘Traffic Jam‘ at just under two minutes an exercise in a capella singing, Taylor aggrieved his journey has come to be delayed, ‘Well I left my job about 5 o’clock/It took fifteen minutes to go three blocks/Just in time to stand in line/With a freeway looking like a parking lot.’
The wry lyrics could easily have come from the pen of Randy Newman, while for background accompaniment Taylor only utilises handclaps and the gently brushed drums of Kunkel. The skat style vocal is a quirky touch which manages not to outstay its welcome, the track brought to a close by the driver now having wider concerns than vehicular gridlock:
‘Now I used to think that I was cool/Running around on fossil fuel/Until I saw what I was doing/Was driving down the road to ruin.’
More traditional as a James Taylor offering is closing cut ‘If I Keep My Heart Out of Sight‘ a self-doubting lament expressing anxieties in regard to a relationship, ‘If I slip and tip my hand/I’m certain to scare you away/Then what would I say?/I’d be hurting, I’m certain/I’d be uncool to let you know/That you’re the one.’
Taken at a sedate pace, Taylor just succeeds in staying the right side of schmaltzy. It has similarities, if not the scope, of his 1972 gem ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight‘, the artist choosing to conclude what is for the most part a buoyant record, in strangely downbeat fashion.
The odd wrinkle aside Taylor had marked his arrival on Columbia with a pleasing, accessible album, the immediate appeal of ‘JT‘ reflected in a rapid rise to number four on U.S. album listings – and in the summer of punk, it was Taylor not Talking Heads, Crosby, Stills and Nash (who reconvened for ‘CSN‘) rather than The Clash, who were enjoying hefty success in the marketplace, although one and all were about to be eclipsed by ‘Rumours‘.
Mention of which is reminder that Fleetwood Mac, with their aforementioned, juggernaut LP of 1977, would beat rival nominee ‘JT‘ to the Grammy for ‘Best Album of The Year,’ Taylor not leaving the ceremony empty-handed on picking up his prize for top vocal. If needed, he could also take consolation in having his most commercially successful LP since ‘Mud Slide Slim‘ and at the same time found himself restored, more or less, to a position of favour with the rock press.
Robert Christgau, never an ardent admirer of the singer-songwriter brigade, admitted ‘JT‘ ‘exceeded expectations‘ when giving appraisal, although even then only gave it a B mark in his renowned A-D rating system. Rolling Stone, however, were more impressed, declaring it ‘interesting and varied‘ in awarding the record four stars (out of five).
Ultimately ‘JT‘ may not have significantly grown the section of record buying public who bought his albums, yet it certainly connected with those who did. Others resumed their interest in Taylor’s career, based on the sales, by virtue of a record that was melodic, vivid and thoughtful. Which was the secret of his ongoing success – rather than the ‘Secret O’ Life.’
JAMES TAYLOR – JT (Released June 22 1977):
Your Smiling Face/ Here We Are/Honey Don’t Leave L.A./Another Grey Morning/Bartender’s Blues/Secret O’Life/Handy Man/I Was Only Telling a Lie/Looking for Love on Broadway/Terra Nova/Traffic Jam/If I Keep My Heart Out of Sight;
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