He may have seen "Fire and Rain," not to mention addiction and pain, but
the singer is still on the scene, drawing big concert crowds and selling
oodles of records.
With typically sly humor, James Taylor describes the mystical songs on
his newest album, Hourglass, as "spirituals for agnostics."
One song, "Up From Your Life," starts out by declaring "God's not at
home," then does a U-turn in it's chorus to implore "Look up from your
life" and to talk about an "ancient and sweet" river connecting all
things.
Another song, "Up Er Mei," describes a powerful feeling of being
"blessed" that Taylor says he experienced climbing a sacred Buddhist
mountain in China. In "Gaia," a rhapsodic hymn to the balance of nature
inspired by the theories of British scientist James E. Lovelock, the
singer calls for prayers for the Earth and for himself.
Has this gifted, famously troubled singer-songwriter suddenly found God?
Not quite. But as he has coped with the successive deaths of several
close relatives and friends and with the break-up on his second
marriage, he appears to have found a tentative peace and accepted the
inevitable changes life brings. The songs evoke a Zenlike embrace of
life's simple pleasures.
"Growing up in North Carolina, I missed the boat on most religions,"
explained Taylor. "My Dad was basically an atheist or at best an agnostic," he added.
"But music has such a spiritual component. There's also my recovery
from addiction, which has been going on for 13 years. There's something
about intoxication and oblivion-seeking that closely parallels a
spiritual need."
Taylor, the patrician '70s troubadour made famous by songs such as "Fire
and Rain," "Carolina In My Mind," and Carole King's "You've Got a
Friend," is now 49. His thick, shoulder-length locks have thinned
considerably, and he is pale and beanpole thin, with blue eyes that burn
behind wire-rim spectacles. He has the demanor of a prosperous, God-fearing 19th-century farmer. When not on tour, he returns to his home on Martha's Vineyard.
Taylor's string of losses began four years ago with the death of his
older brother Alex, whose rock band, the Fabulous Corsairs, he joined in
the mid-60's when he was a teenager. The loss is remembered in the song
"Enough To Be On Your Way," a ballad that begins at a funeral and
describes the ashes of a woman cremated in New Mexico blowing over the
San Juan Mountains.
Several months later, his father's new wife, Sue, who was around the
same age as the singer, died. Then last June, Don Grolnick, Taylor's
producer, keyboardist and collaborator, succumbed to lymphoma at the age
of 48. Hourglass is dedicated to him.
Finally, Taylor's father, who was suffering from multiple ailments, died
last November. Around the same time, Taylor's marriage to his second
wife, actress Kathryn Walker, unwound. He has a new companion now,
Caroline Smedvig, an executive with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. And
he is close to Sally, 23, and Ben, 20, his two musically gifted but
career-shy children by his first wife, singer Carly Simon.
Despite these losses, Hourglass, his 16th studio recording and first
collection of new material in six years, is far from a mournful album.
The sense of depression that was palpable on earlier Taylor albums such
as Flag and Dad Loves His Work is nowhere to be found on the newest
record.
Along with Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and the late Laura
Nyro, Taylor helped found the singer-songwriter genre, the folk-oriented
confessional soft-rock style that dominated American pop in the early
1970's. Among his fellow pioneers, Taylor has probably changed less
musically than any of them.
"I write on guitar in a style which is very concise and doesn't allow me
to break loose," Taylor explained. "The limits of my guitar and of my
vocal range are what keep it identifiable and contained. Songwriting
for me is also not a conscious process. It's really just what happens
to come through, a channeling process."
As primary influences, Taylor listed Hank Williams, the Carter Family,
Woody Guthrie, Jean Redpath, the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes his
parents listened to and the early soul singers Ray Charles, Sam Cooke
and Jackie Wilson. The Brazilian influence that creeps into many of his
songs comes from the '60s bossa nova recordings Stan Getz made with Joao
and Astrud Gilberto.
And like all his peers, Taylor paid close attention to Bob Dylan, who is
six years his senior. "Bob broke down the presentation of the self. He
would write about himself collapsed, strung out in Mexico, wondering how
to get home."
When Taylor took up the guitar, the first songs he played were the hymns
and carols from the Protestant Hymnal at his Massachusetts boarding
school, Milton Academy, and he constructed his finger-picking technique
around their harmonic structure.
"James has a way of getting the guitar to speak that's very particular
and all his, " guitarist Pat Metheny said. "It has to do with his
touch, which is the equivalent of Bill Evans on the piano."
Guest musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma (on cello), Stevie Wonder
(harmonica), Branford Marsalis (saxophone) and Shawn Colvin and Sting
(background vocals) add to Hourglass.
If there's such a thing as an archetypal baby boomer whose life
encapsulates the cultural shifts of his generation, Taylor comes about
as close to fitting the mold as anyone.
"Our generation took up so much space that we didn't have to refer to
anything in the past," he said. "The '50s felt a certain way because of
the age we were. In the '60s, and '70s, the things going on in the
culture were the things that were of interest to us. Then came the cold
shock of reality in the '80s, of having to pay a mortgage and raise a
family.
"Now a lot of people are talking about what the quality of the culture
is going to be like when the boomers are in their 50s and 60s and still
have their health and mental acuity. I find it very promising."