Page 14 - aruba-today-20201121

A14 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 21 November 2020
James Taylor on how he takes a song and makes it his own

By MARK KENNEDY phone and put down the
AP Entertainment Writer line of lyric or melody —
NEW YORK (AP) — Some- that has happened, too.
thing happens when James But my feeling is that when
Taylor covers a song. It gets that’s happening, I’m still
all James Taylor-y. inhabiting that place that I
“People often tell me, ‘It discovered and built by sit-
sounds like you wrote that ting down playing the gui-
song’ or ‘That sounds like tar.” The “American Stan-
a James Taylor song.’ And dards” batch of recordings
that’s because basically reunited Taylor with mas-
it’s been translated into ter guitarist and producer
my language,” the singer- John Pizzarelli. The two had
songwriter told The Associ- worked on Taylor’s 2002’s
ated Press in an interview album “October Road”
this week. and his 2006 Christmas al-
“Not all songs work in my bum. Pizzarelli, who also has
language, but the ones worked with Paul McCart-
that do — if they’re interest- ney, Michael McDonald
ing or worthy of being recut and Rosemary Clooney,
— it’s because it’s nice to calls Taylor an amazing gui-
hear them in James Taylor.” tar player and a talented
Fans are getting more clas- harmonizer. “When you lis-
sics translated into James ten to the collection, he re-
Taylor on Friday with the Singer-songwriter James Taylor appears during a portrait session in New York on May 13, 2015. ally James Taylor-ized them
digital release of three Associated Press and not at the expense of
songs — “Over The Rain- songs picked for the album and Alan Jay Lerner. “I think his own influences: Latin the songs. He makes the
bow” from “The Wizard of and new EP, having first they had a profound effect music, bossa nova and songs better.”
Oz,” “I’ve Grown Accus- heard many of them from on my songwriting. They Afro Cuban. “It’s interesting Taylor says he recorded the
tomed to Her Face” from his parents’ record collec- basically are my teachers,” to put songs into that vo- covers, many at his barn
“My Fair Lady” and “Never tion growing up in North says Taylor. cabulary,” he says. studio in Washington, Mas-
Never Land” from “Pe- Carolina. During the interview, Taylor He is modest about his own sachusetts, not only to hon-
ter Pan.” The trio of tunes “I’d just try them on for size,” was effortlessly thoughtful, songwriting, saying he usu- or them but also to educate
never made it to Taylor’s he says. “It was so easy and moving easily from topics ally sits down with a guitar — reminding some younger
“American Standard” al- natural to pick up an instru- like the gentrification of and plays until he finds a listeners who might be look-
bum earlier this year, which ment and start learning Boston’s suburbs to what a melody — or “catching an ing for the next good thing
contained such covers as songs and reinterpreting revelation Chartres Cathe- idea,” as he puts it — and of sonic past triumphs.
“Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ songs and developing a dral must have been to a maybe a scrap of lyric. “I’ve got four kids and
the Boat” and “God Bless sort of a simple guitar tech- peasant hundreds of years That is how masterpieces they’re all musical to a
the Child.” nique.” ago. He’s well versed in like “Carolina in My Mind” greater or lesser extent. So
Instead of leaning on a pi- The new batch of songs Thomas Mann and Tolstoy. and “Fire and Rain” came I’m constantly saying, ‘Go
ano, they are guitar-led re- lean heavily on Broadway Several times he noted that about. listen to Lee Dorsey, listen
interpretations, often wistful musicals, like the songwrit- his guitar skills were some- “There have been a few to Ry Cooder, listen to Neil
and airy. ing teams Richard Rodgers what limited and that his tunes that I just thought of Sedaka,’” he says.
Taylor, 72, says he was in- and Oscar Hammerstein II, natural tendency to James while I was driving the car “I am always recommend-
timately familiar with the as well as Frederick Loewe Taylor a song is to lean on and I would reach for my ing them.”q
Dylan papers, including unpublished lyrics, sell for $495K

friend and confidante, put the documents up for someone shout / Did he
was sold Thursday to a bid- auction online. The reclu- teach you to wheel & wind
der whose identity was not sive Dylan won the Nobel yourself out / Did he teach
made public. The collec- Prize in literature in 2016 af- you to reveal, respect, and
tion included transcripts ter giving the world “Blow- repent the blues / No Jack
of Glover’s 1971 interviews in’ in the Wind,” “Like a he taught me how to sleep
with Dylan and letters the Rolling Stone,” “The Times in my shoes.”q
pair exchanged. The in- They Are a-Changin’” and
terviews reveal that Dylan other anthems of the tur- Solution Sudoku
had anti-Semitism on his bulent 1960s. Included in
mind when he changed the auctioned items were
his name from Robert Zim- lyrics Dylan penned after
Musician Bob Dylan performs with The Band at the Forum in Los merman, and that he visiting folk legend Woody
Angeles on Feb. 15, 1974. wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for Guthrie in May 1962. The
Associated Press
Barbra Streisand. Dylan, 79, lines, never made public
BOSTON (AP) — A long-lost at auction for $495,000. was close with Glover, who until last month, read: “My
trove of Bob Dylan docu- Boston-based R.R. Auction died last year. The two eyes are cracked I think
ments including the singer- said Friday the collection men broke into music in I been framed / I can’t
songwriter’s musings about privately held by the late the same Minneapolis cof- seem to remember the
anti-Semitism and unpub- American blues artist Tony feehouse scene. Glover’s sound of my name / What
lished song lyrics has sold Glover, a longtime Dylan widow, Cynthia Nadler, did he teach you I heard Puzzle on Page 13