Review: James Taylor, Covers

The cliche knee-high to a grasshopper comes to mind when I muse about just how long I’ve been a James Taylor fan, and I get positively fire engine red when I think about all the times I’ve embarrassed myself being caught unaware that I had an audience while cheerfully singing along with sweet baby James in the car, the shower, and sometimes the grocery store.

Or completely on purpose at a few very drunken karaoke episodes I won’t be saying anything more about…

Taylor, who is 61-ish, has an honest voice which seems born to strike a happy chord in those listening, almost inspite of some of his own lyrics - a few of his tunes can easily be called sorta dark. He’s also a tolerable guitarist, which he learned to play after learning to play cello and this has perhaps influenced his style a wee bit. I’ve always felt his style to be a cute and sonically interesting blend of 75% pop, 25% classical - shaken, not stirred.

Which brings us to Covers, sweet baby James’ latest effort. It was in the fool-magnet display at my local Starbucks recently and I couldn’t avoid buying it.

As the name implies, it’s a collection of top hit tunes by other artists - done with varying degrees of success in that JT style.

If you like James Taylor for his own charm and talent Covers is a very lovable album.

Taylor is amazing in this respect. After a four decade career his voice is still fresh and appealing and his genuine good nature shines through, and if his guitar work has changed at all it has simply gotten better. It’s worth noting that he’s one of the few 1970s dudes I had a crush on back then whom I would still sleep with now, should The Fates somehow cross our paths in such a way.

I wrote something like “varying degrees of success” back a bit, and I’ll explain that statement now. Some of the chosen tunes work very well done ala JT while others work not at all.

Hound Dog, for example, is delightful - Taylor applies his up-front vocal style to this Elvis hit in a bluesy-jazzy arrangement which is pure fun to listen to. Summertime Blues is likewise a treat, done in a very sonically clean way with an agreeable pop slash pop country flavor.

Admittedly, Glen Campbell’s unique, whiny, over-produced Wichita Lineman has never been an easy cover and unless you like funeral dirges it’s a track you should skip, along with On Broadway, a track which made me wish this was actually an old vinyl disc so I could switch the speed up to 45 rpm from 33 1/3.

Overall, Covers is a nice album to have. There are a few gems lurking on it. Not all the hits lend themselves eagerly to Taylor’s style and talents, but then again, you can’t really expect them to.

As a “legacy” pop star, Taylor deserves some points for even attempting a few of the tunes at all, and some of them which shouldn’t work at all really do work - It’s Growing is another sweetie, arranged and sung with verve, an ear-pleasing remake.

Taylor and Dave O’Donnell co-produced this album, and O’Donnell takes the recording and mixing credit - well deserved, for Covers is a great sounding collection. Another thing I like hugely is that Covers is environmentally friendly - the only plasitic inside is the disc itself and the holder keeping it in place. The rest is recycled or recyclable cardboard - yet the whole assembly still manages to have that touchy-feely rich thing going on that we all like in CD and vinyl packaging. (see James Taylor or Hear Music for more info)

~ pagemoneky