The following is a Guest Post by Brad Risinger, reporting on the James Taylor concert in Greensboro, North Carolina on May 18, 2018.
James Taylor has told interviewers that he was “clinically nervous” in 1968 when he played an audition for Paul McCartney and George Harrison for The Beatles’ new record label, Apple. Returning to his North Carolina roots for a May 18 show at the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina, he just chuckled introducing the song he played for Sir Paul: “Something in the Way She Moves.” “I wish I could remember it,” he said of the Apple session, “but I’m told I had a good time.”
Playing a show so close to his beginnings in Chapel Hill – where a bridge south of town bears his name – any gaps in his memory are readily forgiven by an aging, but adoring, crowd. At 70, Taylor’s voice remains as soothing as a soft blanket on a cool morning. His longtime backing vocalists – centered around the charismatic Arnold McCuller – may cover small corners of his range that now elude him. But their interlaced voices are so familiar and compatible that it is hard to think about them without each other.
This tour is unabashedly fueled by memory as much as it is music. It was intended as a summer barnstormer with his old pal, Bonnie Raitt. But illness forced her to back out of at least its early dates.
The homey digital graphics package that accompanied most songs featured photos scattered across his more than 50-year career, both phases of his family life and his many band mates. He signed autographs for most of the intermission at the corner of the stage. And he was tugged back for the second set seeming to enjoy the interaction almost as much as his fans.
Stars, of course, play their catalogues. And two robust sets got to most of Taylor’s critical and fan high-water marks. The applause for “Fire and Rain” in the middle of the second set was so sustained my daughter asked if the show was ending. But in a knowing nod to a loyal fan base, the tour of his discography is reminiscent but not reverent.
James Taylor is comfortable with the chronology of a decades-long career, but won’t be the pop star who plays the same show he offered 30 years ago. He will give you what he has, from where he is, understanding where he and his fans have been together.
He confides that “the old jokes are best, told over and over again.” He never fails to tell the story of his nephew James, and the “cowboy lullaby” he wrote for him driving south to see him for the first time (“Sweet Baby James”). But he’ll also offer differing arrangements that feature many of his stalwarts who share the stage, and truncated versions of classics like “Steamroller” that would seem out of place in their old, extended forms. Even a shortish “Steamroller” in Greensboro caused a slightly winded Taylor to offer “that got a little out of hand.”
At a time when the country is foundering to find its way, Taylor has never been shy about his belief that music, and love, work hand in hand to show a path forward. Back in politically purple North Carolina, he uttered not a word of the socially conscious politics that have defined much of his public life. Instead, he offered what he always has in his lyrics: something to hang onto, for each listener in her own way.
He introduced “Jump Up Behind Me” as a song about getting out of New York in the 1960s when his early band, “The Flying Machine,” had flown apart. He called his father, who sensed the moment, and told him not to move and drove to get him in 12 hours. “I was in trouble,” Taylor recalled.
Taylor’s mellow, reflective folk rock has been so enduring in part for this ability to help listeners cope with what cards life deals you along the way. The Carole King mainstays in the show – “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Up on the Roof” – are hopeful and understanding. One of his best ‘80s songs, “Never Die Young,” is written from a bleaker viewpoint. The song counsels that sometimes we are only managing setbacks to get to a better place, as we “cut up our losses into doable doses, ration our tears and sighs.”
But 10,000 people singing “Shower the People” is at the core of the James Taylor experience. A background video board showed 100 or so video clips of Taylor’s friends and random fans singing along in little boxes that resembled the closing scene of the movie “Love Actually.” There are likely few large-scale tours left for Taylor. But it seems that Taylor, and his fans, are just fine with the legacy message of showing kindness to those around you. “Things are gonna be much better if you only will.”
Photo courtesy of Brad Risinger. Leave your two cents in the comments.
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