Something in the Way He Sings

Song 263: This week the playlist gets Fire and Rain by James Taylor, who also wrote the song. I first heard of James Taylor on a visit with Hank Neuberger. Hank occupied the room right across from me in the college dorm, and had the most amazing record collection, plus a high-quality component stereo setup. Hank happily introduced me to a lot of fine music, and one day when I dropped in to see him, I picked up a copy of JT's first album (on Apple Records) and checked out the lyrics. I noticed the song Something in the Way She Moves, and I remarked about how he had apparently borrowed some lines from the latest Beatles single, only to be told that it was actually George Harrison who had borrowed from Mr. Taylor. Having a subscription to Rolling Stone, I read a review of Sweet Baby James a few months later which made it sound like a record I might want, so I soon got a copy of it. The first few spins on the turntable, I wasn't that excited about the latest addition to my small but growing LP collection -- it didn't curl my socks the way Revolver or Surrealistic Pillow did. However, after a half dozen spins, I began to like the album more and more. I started getting to know the lyrics, and felt a real sense of "Won't you stay inside me, month of May" when June 1 rolled around. I spent a good portion of that summer of 1970 working as a camp counselor, and the cabin where I bunked included a truly impressive component stereo system. I played Sweet Baby James almost every day, and by the end of camping season I had converted the other counselors into James Taylor fans. My study of JT's music that summer, along with a handful of others, also helped me to find my own personal singer/songwriter voice and style, as I pieced together what I heard and connected it with all of the guidance that my roommate Abby had provided over the preceding winter and spring, which I mentioned in my Song 243 (Subterranean Homesick Blues) post. In late August, I visited the Glorieta Southern Baptist center near Santa Fe, traveling with some of my SBC friends from Northwestern U., and I met a Christian songwriter there who spoke to a group of us about songs that had a Christian message, such as Jesus is Just Alright. I thought about mentioning Fire and Rain, but I didn't because I was quite he wouldn't have heard of it. On returning to Evanston, I tried to spread the James Taylor gospel, and I played SWJ for a few friends. I didn't seem to get much traction with anyone, but I remember playing the LP for a woman I knew, and singing along with it, which didn't convert her to being a JT fan, but did elicit a remark that my voice had come to sound just like his. A few years later, when I started hitting the stage more often, at first I felt both bewildered and relieved when people told me that my sound reminded them of Neil Young. While I have great respect for Neil, and I have listened to him often enough, from the beginning, I focused on James Taylor, from his guitar to his voice to his onstage persona, listening to and studying his records way more than Neil, even to the point of consciously imitating a few of JT's techniques, and yet, over 4 decades later, not one listener has ever connected a single element of my style to James Taylor. Anyway, back in that September of 1970, I continued trying to tell my friends about Mr. Taylor, and then suddenly one day, one of them said, "Oh, he's the one that does that new song Fire and Rain" and I said, "Yes, that's the one." My friends began to know about him then, but at first, they said they didn't get that excited about his song. Then, a week or 2 later, they started talking about how good the song was. Before long, JT made the cover of Time, and by then everyone knew who he was, and they knew this track, so I no longer needed to tell people about him. Even so, after listening to this cut hundreds of times over the years, and the entire Sweet Baby James album countless times over the decades, still, hanging out with some friends at a lunch counter in southern CT in the summer of 2001, I can remember the moment when Fire and Rain came across the restaurant radio speakers, and in my life "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend," but hearing this track made me feel as if an old friend had just walked into the room.