London was where James Taylor got his big break when, after a rocky, drug-strewn apprenticeship in New York City, he reinvented himself as a solo performer and managed to get a demo tape to Peter Asher, who played it to his pal Paul McCartney. “Something in the Way She Moves” in particular caught the Beatle’s ear: "I just heard his voice and his guitar, and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great.” Taylor was the first non-UK act signed to Apple, and he recorded his eponymous debut at Trident Studios while The Beatles were working on The White Album. McCartney and George Harrison guested on "Carolina in My Mind", and "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the lyrical starting point for Harrison's classic.
When he stepped onstage at London’s O2 on Thursday, Taylor was immediately into “recovery” talk, and his opening songs, “Whenever You’re Ready”, “Rainy Day Man”, written in the old Hotel Albert in Greenwich Village in the bad old days, and “T-Bone” were all about the R-word. One feared that, as with Eric Clapton’s memoir, it could get a tad relentless. But he soon declared the sermon over, and we moved on into what was an enjoyable if rather undemanding concert that, stage banter included, felt a little too scripted and bloodless.
To start with there’s a major disconnect: a concert by the singer-songwriter whose intimate and confessional style defined a genre playing in London’s O2 to 20,000 people. Taylor’s quiet, conversational baritone is inherently unsuited to such caverns. While the sound itself was clear and unmuddied, there was throughout a discernible echo, plus the audience is forced to choose between squinting hard to focus on the man at the mic or simply watching him on screen. As another rather famous singer-songwriter wrote presciently while Taylor was still battling his teenage demons in North Carolina, “money doesn’t talk it swears.” Music became big business around the time Taylor was coming to the fore – Monterey was the key moment. AXS, the global digital ticketing platform that serves as the official primary and resale ticket marketplace for thousands of stadium tours including Taylor’s, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AEG, the world's second-largest live entertainment promoter after Live Nation. So much for the counterculture.
Dressed in unfashionable-looking trousers and jacket which he soon removed to reveal an unequally unfashionable short-sleeved shirt, Taylor, 78, these days looks less like a rock star than a vacationing accountant having a turn with the band in a late-night bar. His on-stage style is almost avuncular, certainly self-deprecating, and he behaves graciously to the band, introducing each of them as the concert unfolded, taking the time to say a few words rather than simply mumbling their names. Then again, he is descended from the Anglo-Scottish colonists who established the Massachusetts Bay Company!
With no support, it was a generous show: a score of songs, including all the classics. Taylor’s guitar techs brought out a procession of his beloved and beautiful Olson guitars to accompany each while, backed by his All-Star Band – including Walt Fowler on keys and horns, Michael Landau on guitar, and the piquantly named Chad Wackerman on drums – the five-time Grammy-winner offered up the gilded leaves of his songbook. There were also a few classic picks from elsewhere, among them Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” which opened the second half, Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Up on the Roof” and Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is”. It was wonderful to hear him sing what are undoubtedly classics from the rock cannon: “Sweet Baby James”, “Carolina in My Mind”, and “Fire and Rain”, all of them in the second half, the audience softly singing along. No less moving was the rootsy, unplugged sound of “Millworker”, written for the Broadway musical Working and covered so beautifully by Emmylou Harris.
Aside from the inhospitable surroundings, what marred the evening were so many bad-taste videos featuring cliched images and lurid colours. Only “Millworker” and “Up on the Roof” escaped with tasteful black and white. “Mexico” was accompanied by bad AI, while what looked like a series of yukky Thomas Kincaid greetings cards served as a ghastly distraction to the beautiful “Copperline” and “Carolina”. How can someone capable of writing such exquisite songs also be capable of such appalling lack of judgment? And of course, if Taylor had been performing on a proper concert stage there would have been no need of any video in the first place.
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