Sweet Baby James

James Taylor – Royal Albert Hall 7^th October 2014

There are not many acts on my list of ‘must sees’ any more. I have never seen Steely Dan, The Blue Nile or Tom Waits and will move heaven and earth to rectify this. Until last week James Taylor was also on the list.

Taylor isn't generally the sort of act I go for – a very relaxed country feel, tending sometimes on record to be a highly produced sound. But he does it so well. With such a smooth voice – it is laid-back Sunday-morning music without parallel. Coffee, the paper and ‘Sweet Baby James’ is a lovely way to spend a lazy morning.

So the chance to see him live didn't take a great deal of consideration – and I trotted off to the Albert Hall looking forward to ticking another one off the list.

The RAH isn't the best venue for popular music. High ceilinged and vast, it is not intimate (though it’s a lot better than the O2). We were front row stalls (this is the circular bit as opposed to the Arena section – which is where the stalls would be in a normal hall) and the place was full to the gods.

Taylor is 66 now and wanders on stage like a slightly bewildered caretaker. He gives the appearance of great height and general gangly-ness, and gives the impression of living in jeans. Hair apart he seems to have weathered the years and drug issues rather well though. Backed by a fairly conventional backing band (lead, bass, keys, drums, BV cum violin and two other BVs), who were all wonderfully tight and accomplished musicians in their own right, he sits on a stool for half the songs and stands for the rest, playing acoustic guitar for all but one number.

And straight away he is into that laid-back country vibe. In a two hour show, he played every song that you would associate with him, before a third encore of ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’* A few new songs thrown in – and all I would say about them was that they would have fitted in well on the early albums too. Age didn't seem to have affected the voice at all – pretty sure he played Fire and Rain in the same key as it was written all those years ago.

He readily uses the phrase ‘hippy tree-hugger bullshit’ to describe the world view he tends to come back to again and again, but I don’t think the audience had an issue with that.

Between songs he was a surprisingly engaging conversationalist – good humoured and self-deprecating in a way that highlights the decades of stage-craft, and suggests a man very comfortable with himself.

Despite a generally enthusiastic response, there were a few calls out from the audience complaining about the sound quality. Indeed we met a couple leaving at half time who felt that it was ‘appalling’ and ‘a bad way to spend a birthday evening’. I hope they spent the unexpectedly-free rest of their evening visiting one of Tottenham Court Road’s 24-hour Ear Syringing parlours, as I didn't see the problem at all. 

On a couple of occasions the lead vocal was lower in the mix than you would want, but that is the function of a big and boomy hall – and it just meant you had to listen rather than let it all wash over you. I suspect people are spoiled by recorded music and expect the same exact experience live. I crave the opposite. Unless you are at a Kraftwerk gig you should be there to see musicianship and a more stripped and engaging performance, and JT did not disappoint.

The highlight for me – surprisingly – was his version of ‘Up on the Roof’. And I find it hard to say why – he just really seemed to do the song justice in a way that stood out.

So a laid-back evening, delivering exactly what I had hoped for – not ever one to be dancing in the aisles but good music is about so much more than that.

* sometimes known as ‘Will ye go, lassie?’ or ‘Blooming Heather’ in the Kate Rusby version.