Interview: James Taylor on mastery, jealousy, ageing, success, fake nails and Taylor Swift
Ahead of what’s likely his final Australian tour, the great US singer, songwriter and guitarist James Taylor speaks about mastery, jealousy, ageing, success, fake nails and Taylor Swift.
Ahead of what’s likely his final Australian tour, the great US singer, songwriter and guitarist James Taylor speaks about mastery, jealousy, ageing, success, fake nails and Taylor Swift.
When you’re off the road, are you the kind of compulsive musician who needs to touch your guitar every day?
No – often I’ll put it down for a couple of weeks. I’m bringing a guitarist to Australia by the name of Dean Parks, who’s a world-renowned player. It is a great band, and to me, the pay-off artistically is to have them play my music; it’s the best thing. Players like Dean, they play every day; they play at such a high level, and if they don’t play the guitar for a week, they feel it; they notice that they lose capacity. But I’m just not that good. I’m an accompanist, and I use my guitar parts to sketch out for the band what they should be playing.
How malleable is your setlist from tour to tour?
It’s a balance between things we want to play, that keep it fresh, and the idea that people have in mind that, if there’s a list of 20 or 30 songs, they really want to hear seven or 10 of those favourites. You basically perfect a set that will change somewhat, depending on where you are: for instance, I wrote a song about Australia called Yellow and Rose, and I want to play that Down Under. The beginning of the song is ‘Oh boy, Botany Bay, watching the water go by…’ I wrote it after reading the (Robert) Hughes book, The Fatal Shore, but (the song) is about being sent someplace as a sentence to punish you, and finding redemption there.
Have you ever resented songs of yours that you feel must be played each night, lest people walk away disappointed?
Not really. I know what it must be like to have a hit that’s a bear to play every night. I think of Arlo Guthrie’s song, Alice’s Restaurant, that involves telling a long story (across 18 minutes). It was his big hit. He had to do it every night for a while; not so much anymore.
I don’t really have any that are problematic in that way, you know? And the energy that you get from the audience wanting to hear it, and receiving it well, it sort of forgives all; that makes it all worthwhile. Because that’s the main thing that I’m hooked on: audience reaction, and the idea that if you’re ready – and you’re mentally and physically prepared to perform – you show up and you hope for that moment of lift-off, where that ineffable thing happens when a large group of people are having a common experience, and it suddenly gets deep and starts resonating. It’s extremely compelling, and I just never want it to end.
You recently said on social media that this might be your last time performing in this part of the world. Is that right?
Yeah, it just occurred to me that, as it’s been seven years since the last time (in 2017) – and it was seven years before then that I was there with Carole King (in 2010) – seven years from now, we’ll be in the 2030s. So this is quite probably the last time; I certainly can’t count on ever being back. I haven’t signed a legal document saying, ‘I swear, I’ll never come back to these fatal shores again!’
In terms of the mechanics of your performance – your hands, your voice, your body – does it feel different when you step on stage at age 75?
It does, except that I’m just comparing it to a couple months ago at the most, so it all feels like a continuum. But yeah, barre chords are harder for me than they used to be – and of course, it’s a big part of what I play. A year ago, I had a cortisone shot in my left index knuckle, which did the trick; that was all it needed. But the machinery does wear out, and there are certain things for different instruments; trumpet players complain about their lip going, and piano players get problems with their upper back and shoulder. For guitar players, it’s the left hand, and barre chords.
In 2020, you published an audiobook, Break Shot — an honest, thoughtful memoir of your first 21 years. What drove you to be so direct about tough subject matter in your family history?
Well, there’s none of it that’s really too bad. There’s no murder. I don’t think that anybody did anything that would be ‘cancellable’. I think it’s borderline interesting in the first place, and perhaps I’ve been less candid than I should have been in the past – but I figure, what the hell? My songwriting is very personal, close and confessional sometimes, too. That’s just the way I seem to operate. The main thing driving me is to want to offer something interesting. Interviewers often also want what’s prurient, or what’s sensational – and I’m happy to give it to them. I don’t feel as though I’ve sacrificed my private life in my career. My level of success has been very manageable, and really has served me well. I do get jealous of people who are doing better than I do, and also people who make better art than I do – but everybody has that nasty little worm. (laughs)
In 1985, you played at the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil, which you described as a transformative experience. What do you recall about the significance of that event?
Well, it’s like the way I feel about going to Australia – to go to a place far away, and discover there was an audience there for my music. Brazilian music has meant so much to me, and to Western popular music at large; it’s a big contributor and a big source. So for me to go there and play to the largest audience I’ve ever played to; it was 300,000 people at a soccer pitch. Brazilians, when they sing at a concert, they sing loud and in key, and in time, too. It’s really impressive. At that point, I had just gotten sober the year before – gotten clean (from heroin) – and was unsure what it was going to be like to go on, and try to live sober. There was a lot of damage; a lot of wreckage. When the Brazilians sang back at me that night, it really hit hard. That was 40 years ago now, but it was a big deal.
Towards the end of the audiobook, you said, “The success of an artist is not measured by how much he makes himself feel. His success is how much he makes other people feel.” That is such an astute observation. Do you recall when that occurred to you?
I don’t know, but my music has always been about how it makes me feel, because it’s very self-palliative. Not only therapeutic personally, but also celebrational. Or sometimes I’ll have something I want to get off my chest in a song like Slap Leather, or Let It All Fall Down. I’m always initially singing to myself, and I’m the audience. But when people come to me, and tell me that a song has been useful for them; it helped them through a bad stretch, or they danced with their father at their wedding, or they buried their brother…
I have a song called Never Die Young, and a woman came up to me on the street and said, ‘What’s that song about?’ I said, ‘I don’t really know; it just came out of me. What do you think it’s about?’ And she said, ‘Well, that song’s about the death of a child – and I should know, because it helped get me through the death of my child.’ That’s the most rewarding thing, when you do something that works for you – and then it also has the effect of being useful to other people, in the same way.
It’s small exchanges like that one – with the woman on the street – that, together, add up to a life in music, right?
Absolutely. There are big, public successes, and then there are small, intense, private successes. The thing about ‘high late capitalism’ is that we tend to put a dollar value on everything, and there’s a real push to do that. But it’s wonderful when there are other ways for things to have value. I do think that, if you can be of service… that’s what the song Shower The People is about: it doesn’t matter what your political or philosophical or big-picture cosmology is, what really matters is what happens when you’re in contact with other people.
I’ve spoken with some of your musical colleagues recently; Paul McCartney was 81 when he toured here in October, and Tom Jones will be 83 when he visits next month. The strong sense that I got from each of them is that they continue to perform because they love sharing what they’re good at, and they know what it means to people to share those talents. Does that strike a chord with you?
Yeah, that sounds great. Sir Paul is my favourite, but Tom Jones? What a remarkable performer he is, too. I look around for people like Tony Bennett, or Ernest Tubb, a country musician who played late into his 90s, or Eubie Blake … I look at people who continue to be able to perform well, late in their lives, and Tom Jones is a great role model for me.
From one singer-songwriter to another, what do you make of the ascent of Taylor Swift?
Well, it’s a phenomenon, I guess. I understand that she’s due in Australia in a couple of weeks. It’s remarkable; it’s really incredible, the phenomenon that it is. I don’t know; there’s something mysterious about it. I don’t know quite what to make of it.
You’ve performed live with Taylor a couple times, the first of which was in New York, in November 2011. What do you recall of the crowd response to your arrival on stage there?
They were pretty jacked-up already, so I didn’t notice any real difference. (smiles) But I think it was the end of a very successful tour for her, and she had asked me to come and sing at her closing night of the tour. And she was kind enough to reciprocate; I do a yearly gig in my hometown in Western Massachusetts, and she joined us for that (at Tanglewood, July 2012). It was nice – and evidently, it was just the beginning.
By now, you’re well aware that your work is held in high esteem by pretty much anyone who decides to try their hand at becoming a singer-songwriter. What does it mean to you to know that your work has inspired so many other musicians?
Well, that’s a real validation, and deeply rewarding and comforting. It’s one of the things you would hope for, the idea that things I have done have been formative, or a source for other people assembling their art, as well. I mean, I certainly feel that way about a score – or maybe more – of other people. Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye; Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, Donald Fagen with Steely Dan; certainly The Beatles, and Paul McCartney, specifically; Nina Simone. Just hearing them, and trying to emulate them, and trying to channel them... that somebody else thinks that way about me means a lot.
You mentioned Randy Newman; I’m 36, and I’ve heard your music most of my life, thanks to my parents’ record collection. But the song that I’ve heard the most in recent years is called Our Town, from the 2005 Pixar film Cars. I’ve heard you sing it more times than is reasonable, because I’ve got a four-year-old boy who loves that movie. What do you recall of receiving the brief to record Randy’s song for Cars?
Well, it’s interesting: when Randy did the score to Toy Story (in 1995), he wrote a song called You’ve Got A Friend In Me, and asked me to sing that with him – and my manager turned it down. I felt so bad about that (laughs); I felt so disappointed that I told Randy, ‘Listen, if you ever give me a second chance, I’ll do it, whatever it is. Please, give me another shot!’ He means a lot to me; his music is a real source for me. And so he called me up and said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got this song for Cars – do you want to sing it?’ I meant what I had said, and I jumped at the opportunity. It’s not my favourite Pixar movie – but it changes my feeling about it, to know that your son likes it so much. That’s great! (laughs) And it’s a great song; a lovely, moving ‘death of a small town’ song. I wrote a similar one called Letter In The Mail once, and sort of channelled Randy when I was writing it.
I’m glad it worked out with Randy. In 2010, you started posting free guitar lessons for some of your songs. What inspired you to start sharing those on YouTube?
Well, I put those together with a friend of mine named David Mirkin, who’s a guitar player, too. I have a guitar technique that’s not particularly advanced, but is very useful for writing and communicating about the songs. So I wanted to make that available, just for posterity, and we wanted to experiment with how to teach it. If you see the shot from a camera inside the guitar, it sort of internalises it; it makes it a lot easier to actually imitate what’s being done, than if it’s in front of you. It’s almost like the camera’s in your chest as you’re playing. I think that worked out rather well.
It did. One of those videos is all about fingernail care, and how important it’s become for you to use things like fake nails in order to continue working, correct?
Yeah, it’s true. I don’t have particularly robust fingernails, so very early on, they split, they cracked; they were unreliable. Early on, I went to a nail salon and said, ‘Put me on a set of acrylic nails’. If you’re playing every night, and your nails are as weak as mine are … some people have hooves for nails, you know? I wish there was something you could take that would make ‘em grow strong. I hesitate to recommend that people use artificial nails, because I’m sure it’s not good for you – but it’s completely essential for me to use them, to be able to play.
Have you traded nail care tips with other guitarists?
I have: Paul Simon goes to a nail person, and has a professional put on a set for him. Oscar Castro-Neves, the Brazilian guitarist, he’s the one who introduced me to the nail-wrapping technique, where you use the fibreglass tape and then reinforce it with some acrylic. I’ve talked to a lot of people about it – and now my son Henry, he plays with reinforced nails, so I’ve got him strung out, too. Here we go: another generation of people addicted to plastic nails. (laughs)
You were 62 or so when you started publishing that video series – do you think you would have done it earlier in your career, if the technology allowed it?
Yeah, it was one of the first things that occurred to us, as soon as there was social media, and a platform for us to offer things to people. It’s a sort of listener service – I’ve never liked the word fan; it just doesn’t seem right – but a listener service is what it seems to be, and that seems like a good thing to offer. Generally speaking, art is a pretty harmless thing for humans to do, and I think we should do more of it.
How do you think about the notion of mastery when it comes to your musicianship?
No – I just think of it as ‘useful’; my technique on the guitar has been useful. The way I play gives me the harmonic context, it gives me a baseline, it gives me a couple of important internal lines; it’s served me very well. Early on, the guitar was my accompaniment, and then, after I could afford to work with other musicians, it became a mode of communication, to tell them what I was thinking of, in terms of arrangements. But mastery? No – it’s really a matter of utility more than anything.
What’s your sense of how your songwriting muscles have strengthened over the years?
It’s a slow evolution. Songwriting for me is always an unconscious process; I really feel as though I’m channelling things that are coming either from, or through, my subconscious. I don’t really direct or control the thing; I just sort of tap into it somehow, and hang on for the ride. It still doesn’t feel like something that I control, but it does evolve. It does build on itself, and on everything else that I hear, and reinterpret. I do think you get better at it over time. But that initial drive to express yourself, and to get it out of you, and in front of you, and available to someone else? That’s something that burns really bright at the beginning, and is compensated for by experience at the end.
James Taylor’s Australian tour starts in Perth (April 12 + 13), followed by Melbourne (Apr 16 + 17), Adelaide (Apr 19), Mt Cotton, Qld (Apr 21), Sydney (Apr 23 + 24), Newcastle (Apr 27) and Bowral (Apr 28).
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