Excerpt
SUMMARY: "Before This World," James Taylor's first album of all new material in 13 years, is the veteran songwriter's first-ever chart-topping record. Jeffrey Brown talks to Taylor, now 67, about wearing his heart on his sleeve in his songs and finding satisfaction in his life and career.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): “Before This World,” it’s the name of a new album from one of the all-time great singer-songwriters, James Taylor.
Jeffrey Brown spent a day with Taylor in New York recently, and he has our report.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): “Today, today, today,” sings James Taylor, but his voice seems barely changed from many yesterdays, ingrained in several generations of music lovers since the 1970s.
JEFFREY BROWN: These are new songs from his first album of all new material in 13 years. And the writing of them, he told me when we met recently in New York as he rehearsed with his band for a summer tour, has only gotten harder.
JAMES TAYLOR, Musician: In the beginning, there was a kind of energy that — like an urgency to express myself, and the songs just couldn’t be held in.
But I think it changes, the nature of how that — what that energy is. And I need to court the muse in a much more serious way.
JEFFREY BROWN: That early urgency expressed itself in deeply personal songs like “Sweet Baby James.” Some of them were based on his bouts with depression and drug abuse.
He had his first number one hit in 1971 with “You have Got a Friend,” written by his friend Carole King.
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