James E. Perone - The Words and Music of James Taylor

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James E. Perone

THE PRAEGER SINGER-SONGWRITER COLLECTION

The Words and Music
of James Taylor

James E. Perone

Copyright 2018 by James E. Perone

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Perone, James E. author.

Title: The words and music of James Taylor / James E. Perone.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : Praeger, [2018] | Series: The Praeger singer-songwriter collection | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017016396 (print) | LCCN 2017016792 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440852695 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440852688 (hardcopy : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Taylor, James, 1948Criticism and interpretation.

Classification: LCC ML410.T2 (ebook) | LCC ML410.T2 P47 2018 (print) | DDC 782.42164092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016396

ISBN: 9781440852688 (print)

9781440852695 (ebook)

22 21 20 19 181 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

Praeger

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This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

Although the term singer-songwriter might most frequently be associated with a cadre of musicians of the early 1970s such as Paul Simon, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, and Carole King, the Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection defines singer-songwriters more broadly, both in terms of style and time period. The series includes volumes on musicians who have been active from approximately the early 1960s through the present. Musicians who write and record in folk, rock, soul, hip-hop, country, and various hybrids of these styles are represented.

What do the individuals included in this series have in common? Some have never collaborated as writers, whereas others have, but all have written and recorded commercially successful and/or historically important words and music at some point in their careers.

The authors who contribute to the series also exhibit diversity. Some are scholars who are trained primarily as musicians, whereas others have such areas of specializations as American studies, history, sociology, popular culture studies, literature, and rhetoric. The authors share a high level of scholarship, accessibility in their writing, and a true insight into the work of the artists they study. The authors are also focused on the output of their subjects and how it relates to their subjects biographies and the society around them; however, biography in and of itself is not a major focus of the books in this series.

Given the diversity of the musicians who are the subject of the books in this series, and given the diversity of viewpoint of the authors, volumes in the series differ from book to book. All, however, are organized chronologically around the compositions and recordings of their subjects. All of the books in the series also serve as listeners guides to the music of their subjects, making them companions to the artists recorded output.

James E. Perone
Series Editor

As has been the case for all of the writing that I have done for Praeger Publishers, I am indebted to the Praeger acquisitions and editorial staff, as well as to the copyeditors with whom they contract. I am grateful that this well-oiled machine raises questions that I had not considered, provides such a keen eye to help find every uncrossed t and undotted i, and manages to make the entire process as smooth as possible. And, as has also been the case with all of my previous projects, I owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, Karen, for all of her support. In the case of this book, Karen deserves a special shout-out for having to put up with me fumbling my way through the finger-picked acoustic guitar introductions to some of James Taylors most memorable songs. I would also like to acknowledge my friend Mark Calvert. While we were growing up as big Beatles fans, we followed the work of the artists associated with the Beatles Apple Records, including the Beatles as a group and individually, Billy Preston, Badfinger, and that one-time obscure American singer-songwriter James Taylor.

James Taylor is one of the most consistently popular American singer-songwritersand the figure who perhaps more than any other exemplified confessional and introspective singer-songwriter at the start of the singer-songwriter movement in the early 1970ssince the 1960s, who has crossed over between folk, rock, pop, country, and his own laid-back brand of R&B. Generally, Taylors studio albums have sold well and performed well on the charts; however, incredibly, it was not until 2015 that one of Taylors new releases actually topped Billboard magazines album charts. In addition to the pop and Adult Contemporary success that Taylors recordings have enjoyed, and the Grammys and other awards he has won, Taylor has been one of the music industrys more tireless live concert attractions, as well as a frequent spokesperson for and supporter of progressive political candidates and causes.

In considering the entire canon of recorded work by James Taylor, it might be helpful to place it in the context of what the country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons (the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, the International Submarine Band) dubbed Cosmic American Music. Later in this book, the author will discuss aspects of the Parsons vision as it relates to some specific James Taylor songs; however, keeping this vision in mind can be helpful in framing all of Taylors work and especially the evolution of the entire body of his work through the present.

The Parsons vision is detailed in two books, Ben Fong-Torress Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons To put it as concisely as possible, what Parsons had in mind was a popular music genre that thoroughly combined elements of country, gospel, rock, blues, and R&Bin short, a developing form that integrated the various genres later referred to as roots music. In its purest form, Cosmic American Music would be a genre that so well integrated all of these individual roots music forms that one would not be able to categorize a single song, for example, in any one of the individual pigeonholes. At the root (please pardon the intentional pun) of this idea was that all of these genres developed in the United States as part of a multicultural American experience, so a truly multicultural American music would include them all.