Bow wow wow, honk your horn (James Taylor)

James Taylor featured on the Seventies blog by my mate GK recently. he wrote about his admiration for Shower The People.

JT is certainly a seventies titan but he also produced some excellent work outside of that decade.

Here's my top five JT songs that weren't recorded in the seventies:

1 Something in the way she moves
2 Carolina in my mind

Both come from 1968's debut album called James Taylor. I own it because it came out on the Beatle's Apple label. The whole album is kinda strange with those two solid gold standouts surrounded by a couple of other excellent tunes (Rainy Day Man and Night Owl are two), some lesser songs and orchestral interludes. Both were recorded by James for inclusion on his first Greatest Hits package but I prefer these versions. Carolina even has two Beatles playing on it (Paul playing bass and George).

3 Copperline (1991). The sap rises and the angels sigh!
4 Sun on the moon (from 1988's Never Die Young) is funky (yes JT can be funky!) with great drumming by Carlos Vega
5 That's why I'm here (1985). I love self referential material. The line about singing Fire and Rain again and again and again gets me every time.