Events

[ROCK] To some, James Taylor might seem like little more than a purveyor of bittersweet sentiment on the outskirts of rock and roll — a crooner in troubadour’s clothing that soothed the weary minds of a counterculture rendered exhausted in the early and mid 1970s. And while elements of that characterization may ring true, Taylor is more than sentimentality bottled in an acoustic-pop format—you don’t sell 100 million records being so-so. In fact, for 40 years, every album James Taylor released sold over a million copies. This cannot be said for any of his contemporaries, many of whom have stopped making records altogether while JT has kept going. Sonically, he hasn’t changed too much over the years, but he’s done a solid job of mining his imagination for new ways of tapping into human emotion through his songwriting — and folks have responded. While many singer-songwriters fumbled for ways to stay relevant in the 1980’s, Taylor hit a rebound: following a pair of middling albums (1979’s Flag and 1981’s Dad Loves His Work, both made during the demise and immediate aftermath of his marriage to Carly Simon) he scored high with a fresh-faced approach and renewed sense of purpose on the aptly titled, That’s Why I’m Here in 1985. Through the 1990’s, New Moon Shine  and the spiritually-focused (and Grammy winning) Hourglass introduced him to a new generation, along with a live album recorded in Boston that was released in between. All the while, he’s only released records when he has something to say, often waiting 5 years or more to put out something new. What keeps him on the map is his ongoing road presence: people flock to see him perform.  Recent accolades include being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 and receiving  the Kennedy Center Honor in 2016.

Despite the intimacy of his musical M.O., he often chooses to tour larger venues and somehow manages to make it work (not unlike The Eagles) as he did in 2010 with Carole King for their joint Troubadour Reunion Tour. In a pairing that cannot lose, Taylor, 70, is sharing a bill this summer with opener Bonnie Raitt, 68, who enjoyed a similar rebound in the 1980s and 1990s. Raitt has gone on to release her music independently, as is the case with her most recent, 2016’s Dig in Deep.  Both artists began with a taste for the blues, and while Raitt has definitely made more use of that idiom over the years, Taylor’s early work in his band The Flying Machine, not to mention his concert staple, “Steamroller,” indicate a love of blues, albeit seen through a singer-songwriter’s lens. The pair will perform at the Key Bank Center on Sunday, July 1. Raitt’s set will be of opening length – 10 songs — and Taylor will deliver a career-spanning set that’s focused on his most well known material.