SWEET BABY JAMES

During my late Saturday night channel surfing over the weekend, I hit a sentimental jackpot. Guess who was performing on PBS? James Taylor!! What a far-out trip back to the early 1970s!

I didn’t have much spare change when I was a senior in college, but when JT’s debut album Sweet Baby James was released, you can bet I made room in my overstrained budget to buy his mellow LP. I played that record over and over and over, memorizing every word. I’d go to sleep with it, clean house with it, study with it, drink wine and make out with it. Quite a versatile piece of music, I must say. “Fire and Rain” was my favorite song on the track. It starts out about the death of a dear friend who JT laments, “….I always thought that I’d see you again.”

Unlike many other aging singers of my era, Taylor has not lost his vocal chops. He sounds exactly like he did 40 years ago. Maybe that’s because he’s always been a quiet balladeer and not one to scream out his lyrics or wildly jump around with his guitar. His long hair is long gone, of course, but he’s kept his body lean and his style casual. He’s like an old friend returning home from a long journey. As I relaxed on the sofa and closed my eyes listening to him sing, I felt a rush back in time when I was young and thought my friends and I would always be together. It never crossed my mind then that we wouldn’t live and love forever. “….I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end….”

“What are you thinking?” Big Bore asked, feeling my silence.

“Of my tears for friends who’ve died.”
　
“….thought I’d see you, thought I’d see you….”

Oh, that Sweet Baby James sure knows how to sing his way back into my heart.