Celebrated singer-songwriter James Taylor has returned with his first album of new songs in many years. He talks to Graham Reid.
In a few weeks James Taylor will be touring again. Just a short series of dates in North America with his band but - at 67 and despite having been on the road for about 38 weeks last year - he's actually looking forward to it.
"The thing about performing live for me is that it's my life's work," he says seriously. "It's where and how I make music. I travel with this musical community, and it's focused on the three hour show. Everything is dedicated to making that work.
"There is something which happens when an audience responds to the music which doesn't happen anywhere else.
"Usually when we listen to music today it's while we're doing something else, driving in our car or at the office or doing your work. The music is on in the background.
"It's rare you will just sit down and concentrate on the music itself. When that happens with a large audience of like-minded people there's a communal thing and I really love it."
It helps too that he has a new album Before This World, his first of new material in 13 years, to present. That hiatus was in part due to other commitments like touring and recording with Carole King (they played here five years ago), recording two covers albums, a Christmas record and so on. But he does admit part of him was worried he might have lost his songwriting touch.
His pattern had been to go to his studio and write for a few hours in the morning and a couple in the afternoon, but the genesis of Before This World was different. He required quiet time so booked into an apartment hotel in Newport, Rhode Island and sat down with his guitars, notebooks and snatches of songs on his phone. There were only two songs he knew ahead of time that he wanted to write, one was Angels of Fenway about the Red Sox finally winning the world series in 2004 after 86 years.
Musician, James Taylor.
"That was a real event in New England. It's also a song about a young boy and his grandmother but doesn't go too much into describing her life. The only thing that's said is she's a Red Sox fan 'even after granddad died' which suggests she went to the games with him, but after he was gone she wanted to continue it."
As with most of the songs on the album, Angels of Fenway has a reflective quality and Taylor acknowledges he has "a style, a vernacular and a musical vocabulary that I have to work with, that's my raw material".
"I do hear things reiterating and evolving over time, that's inevitable I think.
"For me, I haven't had any transformative musical experience since I've been doing this for a living. I feel I've evolved as a songwriter, but I do tend to like my more recent albums. They are easier for me to listen to than the earlier stuff."
That earlier stuff included the albums Sweet Baby James and Mud Slide Slim which defined the sensitive, singer-songwriter style of the early 1970s. But if Taylor had no major musical turning point, his life - which included teenage hospitalisation for depression, marriages, Grammy awards and addiction - has given him enough raw material.
Watching Over Me on the album is another of his recovery songs and he speaks about "the damage I've done" and "the debt I owe".
So does he live with regret constantly?
Musician, James Taylor.
"I think that's an important element of recovery. Of the 12 steps of recovery, all but four are asking you to come off the shame and regret you feel about the way you've behaved and the things you've done.
"They are an attempt at moving on from that destructive self-loathing and it must be an important part of it or it wouldn't take up as much space as it does. I don't live with much regret.
"Yet, sometimes I do if I'm thinking about it. The main thing is to try and move beyond it and get on with your life."
With a batch of new songs - among them the slinky Sketch of the Highway, and he offers a rare laugh when it's suggested the folksy Montana and the ballad You And I Again about his relationship with his wife Kim sound exactly like classic James Taylor - and the promise of coming to New Zealand with his band in 2017, he's certainly doing that. And there are the impending tour dates.
"I doubt I'll work hard this year. In fact, I know I won't because I need to focus on my family, my kids are changing schools.
"But I love it. So I think there's some value in continuing and to work on it, and to work at it.
"At this point it feels like a life's work."
Win a signed guitar
To mark the release of Before This World, James Taylor's first album of original material in 13 years, TimeOut - courtesy of Universal Music - is giving away a guitar signed by the man himself. The winner will also get a CD copy of the new release, as will four runners-up.
To go in to the draw to win the autographed Yamaha solid top guitar, email TimeOut with "James Taylor Guitar" in the subject line. Include your name, daytime phone number, and street address. Entries close on Wednesday.
Who: Legendary singer-songwriter James Taylor What: Before This World, his first album of new songs in 13 years Essential albums:Sweet Baby James (1970), Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (71), Dad Loves His Work (81) and October Road (02)
