Ravinia 2024 Issue 1

James Taylor may not be an annual Ravinia Festival fixture—à la the late, yet immortal Tony Bennett—like he has become at Tanglewood, near his Boston origins out east. In fact, his two-night stand on June 8 and 9 will be his first return to Highland Park, IL, in a decade, and only his fourth time overall per- forming at Ravinia (having played such double-headers in 2008, 2012, and 2014). However, Taylor has been a tireless, touring troubadour for more than 55 years, and has come to define the out- door, communal concert experience that Ravinia helped establish in the nation in 1904 and continues to cultivate. After all, can there be any better way to spend a soft, summer evening under the stars than on Ravinia’s lawn with a glass of wine in hand and “Sweet Baby James” serenading your ears? Taylor’s vast, five-decade musical catalog is pop music’s greatest comfort food. Since his debut album in 1968, Taylor has created a casserole of countless combinations packed with tasteful hints and familiar flavors; sounds that are a satisfying, addictive, delicious, tradi- tional, memory-inducing musical meal, inducing an emotional warmth and pleasing, happy tingle. Taylor standards such as the tender, nostalgic lullaby “Sweet Baby James”; the loving, adoring “Something In The Way She Moves”; the wistful, promising “Shower the People”; the dreamy, longing “Carolina In My Mind”; the joyful, grinning “Your Smil- ing Face”; and so many other favorites enforce this metaphor. Yet, while his musical lineage may- be be founded on solid pop hooks and structures, his legacy is deceptively diverse. Taylor’s muse often expands and expounds into myriad influences of folk, blues, gospel, soul, Motown, and country. The combination of his dark, contem- plative looks; his soft, gentle, calming, welcoming voice; his deadpan, ironic sense of humor; his shy, “aw shucks” vibe; and the patented “James Taylor acciden- tal casual” persona he exudes on stage and on record all helped him inspire and nurture the “sensitive singer-songwriter” genre of the late ’60s and early ’70s. He even found himself as “cover model” on a 1971 issue of Time magazine heralding the emerging movement. Taylor’s quiet, introspective songs seductively speak of pain, ease the heartbreak, and sprinkle spices of surprise into the mundane. From the beginning, his music offered a new personal perspective, with articulate, reflective, confessional lyrics that made pointed pronouncements for an engaged generation in a chaotic time. “That Baby Boom generation musical expression, which happened between ’62 and 1980, that sort of 20 years of amazing activity that happened, I was in the center of it. I had a real sense of this generational phenomenon … we were communicating to each other,” Taylor explained to the Associated Press earlier this year. “I seem to write a lot about going from darkness to light,” Taylor perceives as a common theme of many of his pivotal songs. Cleverly hidden in plain sight behind the signature, soothing sound of his mellow baritone and his bittersweet ballads, Taylor has bravely cited many intimate revelations of his complex life and art. This emotional and transformational thread is evident in memorable Taylor tales such as the aftermath of a friend’s suicide in “Fire and Rain,” or the bruising adjustment of divorce in “Her Town Too.” Taylor’s seemingly meteoric rise may look like a fairytale success story with a quick glance. After all, in 1968, then-un- known 19-year-old Taylor auditioned for Paul McCartney and George Harrison, and at the urging of producer Peter Asher he became the first non-British act signed to The Beatles’ fledgling re- cord label, Apple. Both Paul and George played on Taylor’s original version of “Carolina In My Mind,” and his “Some- thing In the Way She Moves” became the impetus for Harrison’s own Beatle masterpiece “Something.” Not a bad start, eh? However, his early life had its share of serious trials and travails of depres- sion, lack of focus, mental illness, drug addiction, and parental strain. Most significantly, in his late teens, Taylor spent time in a psychiatric hospital to treat his mounting emotional issues. Just a few years later—in the midst of international success and fame, and in a high-profile, seemingly fantasy marriage to Carly Simon—Taylor’s growing drug problem consumed him and worsened his still-lingering, inner pains. This dangerous dance threatened his career and his life. Thankfully, Taylor eventually over- came his internal battles, finding a new sobriety in 1985. Since 1995, he’s also found a new love and a new family. Today, with his wife, Kim, and their two sons, Rufus and Henry, James appears to James Taylor at Ravinia in 2014 RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JUNE 7 – JUNE 30, 2024 8