This blog has always been about honoring the music that I associate with important events in my life. Since I started writing it, a year and a half ago, I’ve shared stories about the singers and songs that have been part of my half century or so of figuring out how I fit in the world. But today’s blog isn’t about a song from my past; it’s about the music I’m listening to today, while we’re all living away from the world.
Just when our shelter-in-place began here in New York State, I received a gift from a dear friend. She hadn’t sent it because of the pandemic; it just happened to arrive as we were all beginning to spend most of our time at home. Because this friend and I share a long history, I always consider a gift from her as meaningful. And that was the case when she sent me this: James Taylor’s latest CD.
James’ new album is called Standards and it’s a collection of tunes from The Great American Songbook, music that was written and first popular nearly a century ago. (It’s interesting that several songs on the CD are from the 1920s, when the United States and the rest of the world were recovering from the 1918 influenza epidemic.) My first thought when I received the CD was that James had sold himself out. It seemed like he’d joined the many singers who’ve decided to forego their own new music by recording an album of old songs. I wondered if James was just trying to make a little money, then I read what he wrote in the album’s liner notes:
“These are songs I have always known. Most of them were part of my family’s record collection, the first music I heard as a kid growing up in North Carolina…Before I started writing my own stuff, I learned to play these tunes, working out chord changes for my favorite melodies. And those guitar arrangements became the basis for this album.”
James’ guitar did make my first listen of Standards enjoyable. To hear him recreating the melodies of “God Bless the Child” and “Ol’ Man River” on guitar welcomed me into this new musical territory for Taylor. But even more precious was his voice, so familiar to me after fifty years that it sounded like a lifelong friend had stopped by for a visit. But this CD hadn’t come to reminisce about the good old days of our high school prom or my summers working at a camp or the birth of my two children. It came to start a new conversation, and after spending so much time at home, James’ CD has become a soundtrack of this unique time we’re all living through. When this pandemic is over, when these days are someday our history, I know that whenever I listen to Standards, I’ll remember the spring of 2020.
Years from now, when I hear James’ version of the comforting ballad “Moon River,” I’ll recall the first time I heard him singing it, sitting in my car outside a grocery store, preparing for the uncomfortable experience of putting on a mask. When I hear James on the fanciful “Pennies From Heaven,” I’ll remember wondering if I’d ever feel happy-go-lucky again. When he sings “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” a song about cruel prejudice from the musical South Pacific, I’ll remember that some people tried to politicize this global pandemic. And I’ll never forget the irony of hearing James serenade us with the intimate song “The Nearness of You.”
When I look back on this experience of isolation, I’ll be thankful for how James helped me feel less alone. I used to belong to a group of music lovers who’d gather occasionally to join our voices in song. Some brought instruments to accompany us and we often met at the home of a woman who owned a piano. I was just learning how to interpret my favorite songs on the keyboard and I told her I admired her piano playing. She told me this: “When you learn to play music, you never have to feel alone.”
That’s what receiving the gift of James Taylor means to me. To have his trusted voice fill some of the emptiness of my days with beautiful music is perhaps the greatest gift I could receive right now.