James Taylor was born to grow old, I mean, if he wasn’t gonna OD or off himself, he wasn’t going to do anything at all but grow old and sort of grow a Massachusetts glow about him, in the September grass. If he wasn’t gonna be a burn out part out of the 27 year old dead club, he was gonna be this elder statesman and here he is now and we are all the better for it.
But the problem is, maybe you have to be old yourself to fall inside a remembrance of a young lover with a sighing “Where is she now? I don’t know.” That’s from “September Grass” off James Taylor’s last album of new material, 2002’s sublime October Road. There has been one more in the past 25 years, 1997’s Hourglass until now and so let’s grade Taylor’s last quarter century of new albums
Hourglass – 1997 – Grade: A
October Road – 2002 – Grade: A
Before This World – 2015 – Grade: A
Taylor may be slow, though it is less that he is a slow writer and more that he doesn’t write at all, but when he gets around to it, writing suits him better now. Taylor has never gone on a three album run this great before, I guess, James Taylor to Sweet Baby James to Mud Slide Slim, but the latter isn’t as good as it needs to be to compete with his latest three. There is no better between the three, maybe October Road peaks highest, and Hourglass has his finest political achievement with “Line Them Up” , the deeply arranged “Before This World/Jolly Springtime” off Before This World the most purely musical and best arranged. As for lowest point, well, take this from a Yankee fan, the angelic chorus on his Red Sox song is overkill. But really, that is as low as it goes.
Before This World is for the aged, it has a slow intense, yielding to life to it, a sort of wiseness, even on “Far Afghanistan” –a soldier over there is always risky busy, but Taylor has written a Gaelic folk song with a great punchline “the crazy pastor talks to God and his God talks back to them” is as close to all religions as you can get. That’s good but anybody who remembers how Afghanistan bankrupted the USSR might have warned the US, and Taylor taking his US soldier into, not the heart of darkness, but the heart of a great people is aware of the price of not learning from a history he lived through.
It is a great song, and there are its equals here, Sting on the “Before This World” is used with exemplary intelligence, and the only other guest, Yo-Yo Ma on cello for the lovely time passing in love “You And I Again” is a match of tenderness and heart, the precious days as they go by counted off. Yo-Yo Ma takes the middle eight and while it is only a couple of bars for the solo it pushes you into the Autumnal glow warm as a late September sun.
You might remember Bob Dylan’s cover of the no not traditional, it was written by Francis McPeake, “Wild Mountain Thyme” , but this is how Taylor’s mellow sweetness, all burnished wood deepened through time. There is no mid album swoon, it is all perfect in itself, a glorious timely piece of work.
I’ve read some reviews of Before This World, and they are all “a little on the dozy side but pleasant enough”. I get the sense that the older you are the more you’ll enjoy it. Taylor has a large catalog, from covers like “You’ve Got A friend” and “How Sweet It Is (To be Loved By You)” to original songs like the lullaby “Sweet Baby James” and anthem “Shower The People”, all fine stuff, though over an album he could get a bit much, but his last three albums are something more, they honor the aging, they honor this time of life. Perhaps you have to be nearing the last chapters to completely grasp it, if you are and you can, you will cherish this superb album.
Grade: A
