Peter Viney's Blog

James Taylor

British Summer Time series
Hyde Park, London

Sunday 15^thJuly 2018

SET LIST
Carolina On My Mind
Fiddle instrumental (Andrea Zon)
Country Road
You’ve Got A Friend
Up On The Roof
Steamroller
Mexico
Something In The Way She Moves
Sweet Baby James
Fire & Rain
Shed A Little Light
Your Smiling Face
Shower The People
How Sweet It Is

HIS ALL-STAR BAND

Steve Gadd- drums
Michito Sanchez – percussion
Luis Conte – percussion
Michael Landau – guitar
Kevin Hays – piano, keyboards
Jimmy Johnson – bass guitar / MD
Lou Marini – saxes, flute, clarinet
Walt Fowler – trumpet, flugelhorn, keys
Andrea Zon – backing vocals, violin
Arnold Mculler – backing vocal
Kate Markowitz – backing vocal

Boston Globe picture

As main support to Paul Simon, this is a truncated set compared to the main James Taylor / Bonnie Raitt tour. Inevitably it’s the rarer stuff that gets cut, (Walking Man, First of May, Johnny B. Goode)  but that’s what you do with a huge open air audience. More surprising is that the duet on You Can Close Your Eyes with Bonnie Raitt elsewhere on the tour gets cut also. As support, you don’t get an encore in Hyde Park. They are famously anally-retentive about sticking to time. Otherwise, stuff was moved around near the start, but the sequence of songs from Mexico through to How Sweet It Is was exactly the same for the tour. I’d wondered whether James Taylor or Paul Simon would have Steve Gadd with them. James won. Arnold McCuller also appeared with Bonnie Raitt in the previous set.

Considering Carole King filled Hyde Park for BST Summer Time, I’d assume James could easily have filled it alone as headliner, though it was less crowded (just very crowded) near the front of general admission than it was for Paul Simon (where it was INCREDIBLY crowded). Then again, as far as sound goes, you hear extremely well further back, and I guess more people braved the long lines for food before Paul Simon, then pressed forward. Whatever, it was a HUGE audience of 60,000 for James Taylor with a very large number of accomplished singalongs who knew every word.

James Taylor, on TV screen, Hyde Park

James Taylor exuded a relaxed comfort with the tens of thousands, though he said several times how pleased he was. Maybe it’s a brilliant act, but he looked comfortable on the stage with his familiar and first-rate backing group, and he looked comfortable in his own skin too. Mellow!

He started with early in his career with Carolina On My Mind then brought Andrea Zon to demonstrate her fiddle playing with a high speed virtuoso instrumental piece.

That led to Country Road from Sweet Baby James, one of four songs from his second (and most successful) album. On most of the tour, he played Sunny Skies as well, making five. Both these openers are better than he could have envisaged when he did the original versions  … fifty years ago.

You’ve Got A Friend was next, from Mud Slide Slim & The Blue Horizon. He quoted Carole King. It had been an encore earlier in the tour. For a huge open air festival, putting one of your two best-known songs early is a good strategy, which explains the shift, though I thought it robbed him of a perfect ender. He played with the words Everyone in Hyde Park today … you’ve got a friend … You can’t go wrong with that sort of sentiment. It’s on You Tube (at the moment). LINK HERE.

It seemed appropriate to stay with Carole King and do the Goffin-King Drifters hit Up On The Roof next. Throughout the day, every act had great stuff projected behind them. Here it was New York skyline. A pedant, OK that’s me, would have to note that he confused an “up” and “a down” … down on the street, NOT up on the street.

Steamroller demonstrated how sharp and strong his horn section was. James Taylor switched to an electric Fender, in my favourite early 60s shade of light blue, too. As I’ve said in earlier reviews, when you have originals that are as powerful “R&B” in style as Steamroller, why do cover versions of soul songs?

From that point, we are into the fixed, carefully curated set right to the end. The projected collage is so well thought out that it might dictate it, but a great deal of thought has gone into the musical and emotional arc.

Mexico on The Great Oak Stage, Hyde Park

Mexico leads in. Swirling Mexican patterns. We thought Carlos Castaneda, but I’d guess the recent Disney Mexican animations may be the real inspiration. Loved the twin trumpet sound and the extended percussion section.

Something In The Way She Moves was the second one from the Apple album (James Taylor). He described auditioning at Apple, ‘not far from here in Baker Street’ forPaul McCartney and George Harrison, and getting the Apple album deal. He said it was the start of a run of luck that extended through his career.

Sweet Baby James … great song.  Missed the narration from his duo album with Carole King, but then I know it by heart.

Fire and Rain. Something of an emotional moment for me. I described in my obituary article Tribute to John Wetton  : 

Karen and I went to see James Taylor with John. John produced backstage passes, and we went back with him. I was excited to chat with Steve Gadd …  I felt sorry for James, who was gracious and charming, but behind the eyes as he met Karen and me you could see “Who the fuck are these people?” But John held his hand, and said ‘I can’t tell you how much Fire and Rain has meant to me. Not just in 1971, but ever since. It’s been such an important song in my life.” Not many of John’s prog fans would ever have guessed that one. Driving home with Karen after the news of John’s passing, I remembered that, and put Fire and Rain on. We both wept.

Yes, I have a James Taylor play list on my in-car iPod. What do you think? And John loved that Sweet Baby James album and really did play it for decades. And hearing Fire And Rain it all came back to me. I found myself rubbing my eyes in fact as my tear ducts reacted, though unfortunately I’d recently smothered my face in Factor 30 which then stung so much I lost attention on the rest of the song. John would have found that funny and taken the piss.

The run in to the end has a theme. The backing vocalists, Armold McUllers, Andrea Zon and Kate Markowitz, really go for it on a gospel Shed A Light. Then they have been so important in this set. The song is dedicated to Dr Martin Luther King, and James got a huge roar as he said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is an America different than the one represented by that guy,  It is bigger than that, it has soul and will be back. So, let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King and recognize that there are ties between us. All men and women living on the Earth, ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood. We are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead.
The Boston Globe 16 July 2018

Huge ovation and cheering. We know who “that guy” is. And no, I didn’t transcribe it but The Boston Globe did.

Your Smiling Face brings us to Shower The People (with love) which sounds sincere, and we took it, as an audience, as such. Beautiful in late afternoon sun, though still REALLY hot.

The encore is How Sweet It Is, right tone, right mood for outdoors on such a day, so that even my muttered I’ve seen Marvin Gaye do this was muted.

James Taylor and Paul Simon share a taste for impeccable bands, beautifully articulated lyrics and great tunes.

*****

SEE ALSO

James Taylor, Bournemouth 2014 (not the one mentioned, which was a few years earlier)