I started out writing just for guitar and voice, because that’s all I had. Does that come into play when you’re writing new songs? Obviously you’ve developed a comfortable rapport with your band. “The band is a big part of what’s going on here,” he says. Fans keep turning up for shows the songs keep coming, perhaps a little more slowly than they once arrived and his longtime band can still translate them into spry, sophisticated arrangements. It is a record by a man who sounds like he can’t quite believe his long stretch of good fortune. “Before This World” is a finely crafted record, melancholy at times (“Montana”), bawdy at others (“Stretch of the Highway”), and generally celebratory. However, in the time since 2002’s “October Road” he has recorded two Christmas albums, two covers comps, a live album and a collaboration with Carole King-all while touring heavily. “Before This World” is Taylor’s 17th album in 47 years, but only his first collection of original material in 13. “Greatest Hits” may have included some of his best songs, but it may have misrepresented him to subsequent generations by omitting some of his more extreme material, such as the genially goofy “Gorilla” and the devastating “A Junkie’s Lament.” His music is darker and funnier, more varied and self-deprecating than you might think. In fact, Taylor is perhaps one of the few music superstars whose catalog still has dark corners to explore. Which is not an entirely accurate impression. Perhaps for that reason, it’s been too easy to write him off as Granddad Rock: too mellow, too sensitive, too old. On such albums as 1970’s “Sweet Baby James,” 1971’s “Mudslide Slim & the Blue Horizon,” and 1977’s “JT,” he exhibited a soft-spoken intelligence, a precise guitar-playing style, a deep musical curiosity, and most of all a laid-back demeanor that would set the template for sensitive dudes for years to come. During the 1970s, he embodied the archetype of the American singer-songwriter: bookish yet outdoorsy, not quite a hippie but definitely not a rocker, more apt to express his deepest emotions in song rather than in conversation. Taylor was still a teenager in 1968 when he signed with Apple Records, the label owned by the Beatles, and couldn’t legally drink when he released his self-titled debut. It has been a back-catalog best-seller for decades, certified Diamond (10,000,000 in sales), and, more important, a means for younger and younger listeners to dip a toe into Taylor’s expansive, era-defining oeuvre. Released in 1976, after seven hits album, the collection distilled Taylor’s literate songwriting and wistful melodicism for subsequent generations. This story has been corrected since it was originally published.ĭespite its austere white artwork, James Taylor’s “Greatest Hits” may be one of the greatest greatest hits ever - or at least one of the most durable.
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