As regular readers will know (and if you are one, thank you!) I am more than a little in love with James Taylor. I have listened to and loved his music since my early teens; there will always will be a tiny garden in my heart that blossoms for him.
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I hold him in high regard, because apart from making (soulful, melodic, sometimes haunting, sometimes powerful) music, he is open, honest and humble about his struggles with depression, alcoholism, heroin addiction, and his ongoing recovery.I am also grateful to him, for making music that has sustained me through times of change and challenge.
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I have mentioned before that I listened to his music when I was at boarding school, on the beautiful but remote island of Lewis. I was doubly removed from my previous life; our family had moved from mainland UK to the Western Isles, and I then had to move again to Lewis to attend senior secondary school, staying in a fairly inhospitable school hostel, sharing a small room with two other girls.I had a different accent, different clothes, a different attitude to the girls who had been brought up on the islands; these differences made me something of a curiosity. I was both lonely and conspicuous, a very uncomfortable combination. James Taylor's music, which I played in the evenings, and on weekends, really kept me grounded in this unfamiliar world, and helped me hold on to my sense of self (incidentally so did listening to Dr Hook, I really am a hippie at heart).
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A few years later, I was in my early 20's, living and working in Edinburgh. I was happy, busy and sociable. However, as with many people in similar situations, I often suspected that everyone else was having a much better, more successful life than I. James Taylor's music was again my solace; every night I played his 'Greatest Hits' album before I went to bed. I drifted off to sleep with James' soothing voice in my ears.
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When, around the same time, I spent six months travelling in Australia, I took my precious Greatest Hits cassette tape with me, playing it whenever I could borrow a cassette player. It was a talisman for stability; I loved my time in Australia, but was often homesick.Once more, James Taylor's music provided a small but vital anchor. Listening to his voice, pondering his lyrics, I would feel my heartbeat slow down, and take some time out to just dream and reflect.
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James Taylor's music is also associated with many happy times too. Not long after I met Derek, I saw James Taylor live for the first time, from way up in the Gods at the Edinburgh Playhouse. I also treasure a memory from August 1999, when he played a small outdoor gig at Lennoxlove House, near Edinburgh. Derek and I went along, and took a picnic. I was heavily pregnant with Jacob. When James sang 'You've Got A Friend', I sang along, wanting this baby to hear, to know that all he ever had to do was 'call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I'll come running.....'
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I have been reflecting recently on James Taylor's music more than usual, partly due to seeing him recently in Florence, and partly because he has just released a new album 'B4 This World', his first album of new songs since 2002. This has meant some media coverage, and lots of interviews etc, which has been a great pleasure for me. Here is a video interview; here is an interview from a weekend newspaper magazine and, if your appetite is really whetted, here is an uncut interview from a recent Howard Stern show.
Having shared my love of James Taylor's music, I would love to know,are there any musicians whose music you have loved over many years, whose music has comforted and sustained you through good times and bad?
