The Grammys have a long and well-deserved reputation for delivering make-up awards, honoring artists whose work the Recording Academy largely (in some cases entirely) ignored in their prime, honoring current releases that pale in comparison to the classic records that the Grammy voters shrugged at back in the day. One of many such examples is James Taylor\u2019s 1997 Best Pop Album Grammy for Hourglass<\/i>, a solid if not especially notable second-half-of-his-career album from a guy who put out half a dozen stronger ones prior to that.<\/p>\n
In the media run-up to its release, veteran soft rock singer-songwriter Taylor characterized Hourglass<\/i> as a collection of \u201cspirituals for agnostics,\u201d and it\u2019s easy to appreciate how that phrase captures the essence of not just this album, but Taylor\u2019s entire catalog of warm, observant, penetrating and piquant songs exploring the nature of solitude and friendship, alienation and love, tragedy and comedy, life and death. Whether he\u2019s firing off goofy wisecracks or engaging in harsh self-critiques, Taylor has a way of endearing himself with earnestness even as he\u2019s knocking you back on your heels with honesty.<\/p>\n
Hourglass<\/i> capped something of a mid-career renaissance that had seen Taylor\u2019s fertile \u201970s run followed by a more fallow period in the \u201980s, leading up to a resurgence with 1991\u2019s sparkling New Moon Shine<\/i> and 1994\u2019s double-disc concert collection Live<\/i>, capturing his by-then polished-to-perfection live show. It also marked JT\u2019s first album in 18 years without Don Grolnick, whose tenure as his main keyboardist extended back to Flag <\/i>(1979) and who had over time assumed the role of musical director and then also producer on Taylor\u2019s previous two studio albums. Hourglass<\/i> is dedicated to Grolnick, who died of lymphoma on June 1, 1996.<\/p>\n
The highlights from this album\u2014produced by old pro Frank Filipetti\u2014arrive early and often, and center on two recurring Taylor themes: frank examinations of his own troubled family history, and looming mortality. The two intersect most memorably on \u201cEnough To Be On Your Way,\u201d in which Taylor zooms in on the funeral for his older brother Alex, who died in 1993 at just 46 after downing most of a bottle of vodka. Its penetrating tone is an echo of \u201cThat Lonesome Road,\u201d \u201cNever Die Young,\u201d and even \u201cFire And Rain,\u201d earlier Taylor songs addressed to friends gone too soon, and while it\u2019s addressed to a fictional \u201cAlice,\u201d it\u2019s a thin veil for a song that Taylor has stated is indeed about his brother. Notable also is the way its opening couplet\u2014\u201cThe sun shines on this funeral \/ The same as on a birth\u201d\u2014subtly calls back to Taylor\u2019s early hit \u201cSweet Baby James,\u201d written about the birth of Alex\u2019s son James.<\/p>\n
Other highlights include the rascally-sweet love song \u201cLittle More Time With You,\u201d featuring a superb harmonica solo from guest Stevie Wonder, and the somewhat ironically upbeat \u201cJump Up Behind Me,\u201d about the time his father drove up from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to New York City to rescue him from a bad situation after the collapse of his early group The Flying Machine. The latter\u2019s follow-up \u201cAnother Day\u201d pays glowing tribute to a new dawn: \u201cThe sun has begun \/ To melt all our fears away \/ Another day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the album, Taylor mixes in fairly typical-for-him numbers reveling in the beauty of nature (\u201cGaia\u201d), finding solace in travel (\u201cUp Er Mei\u201d), playfully poking political villains (\u201cLine \u2019Em Up\u201d zooms in on the goodbye party Richard Nixon threw for himself in 1974), and calling back to the pop standards of his youth (closing cover \u201cWalking My Baby Back Home\u201d). All are rendered with the requisite gentle shine applied by Taylor\u2019s crack band, at this point anchored by Clifford Carter (keys), Jimmy Johnson (bass), Carlos Vega (drums) and Bob Mann (guitars), with a stellar vocal chorus of Valerie Carter, Arnold McCuller, Kate Markowitz and David Lasley.<\/p>\n
Said shine is further burnished by a steady queue of guests including Branford Marsalis, Michael Brecker, Shawn Colvin, Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, and the aforementioned Stevie Wonder. Was it their star power, the intensity of the album\u2019s themes, the comforting familiarity of JT\u2019s soothing voice, or just good timing and a sentimental vote that won Hourglass<\/i> a Grammy? Who can really say? What can be said is that while Hourglass<\/i> ranks near the middle of the pack in terms of Taylor\u2019s overall catalog, it certainly displays all of the characteristics that have won him a loyal multigenerational following: warm melodies, crisp arrangements, and lyrics that are alternately raw and poetic, offering a penetrating perspective on the moments that shape the arc of our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5945],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46348","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-james-taylor","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46348"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46348"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}