my column ranking Taylor\u2019s studio albums<\/a> I described One Man Dog<\/i> as \u201c[a]n early-days album that lacks the focus of subsequent efforts,\u201d noting its \u201cshaggy arrangements and gang vocals\u201d and mix of short songs and shorter instrumental interludes. From the very start, the album feels like a party jam where someone accidentally set a half-full bottle down on the \u201crecord\u201d button.<\/p>\nAttendees at the party include the core of Taylor\u2019s band for the rest of the decade: childhood friend Danny (Kootch) Kortchmar on guitar and backing vocals, Lee Sklar on bass and Russ Kunkel on drums and percussion. With Carole King off promoting her solo triumph Tapestry<\/i>, Craig Doegre takes over on piano and keys, while King, Carly Simon, Linda Ronstadt and a host of Taylor siblings contribute backing vocals.<\/p>\n
The acoustic-and-bongos first verse of album opener \u201cOne Man Parade\u201d establishes the vibe, as Taylor essays another of his lyrics about the introvert\u2019s dilemma: throw a party or hit the road? (Or maybe one and then the other.) The lilting \u201cNobody But You\u201d digs deeper: \u201cEverybody knows that I\u2019m just a Joe \/ That likes to hang around \/ Talkin’ about my problems \/ Bringing other people down.\u201d That\u2019s why Taylor\u2019s downbeat, introspective songs work: he knows<\/i> they\u2019re downbeat and introspective, and that his audience welcomes that moment of self-reflection.<\/p>\n
The thing is, in this particular case, Taylor appears to have decided that the cure for his blues is to toss aside his songwriting ambitions and just goof around. The 1:35 \u201cChili Dog\u201d\u2014a sustained gag that probably felt funnier under the influence\u2014gives way to the blue-eyed funk of \u201cFool For You,\u201d another tune that feels unfinished at just 1:42. Then we get the first of a pair of minute-long instrumentals that feel like acoustic guitar warm-up exercises, and another vignette of a song (1:37) that doesn\u2019t even merit a real title (it\u2019s called \u201cNew Tune\u201d).<\/p>\n
Side One closes with a pair of actual completed songs, two of the strongest to be found here. Kortchmar\u2019s thrummy road song \u201cBack On The Street Again\u201d fits Taylor like a glove, a keening philosophical number whose solution to the blues (dance with your baby and then hit the road) is right in Taylor\u2019s wheelhouse. The side closes out with the plaintive, gently grooving \u201cDon\u2019t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,\u201d a cozy, laidback seduction piece finished off with a sweet Michael Brecker sax solo.<\/p>\n
Taylor, Kortchmar and Sklar co-write \u201cWoh, Don\u2019t You Know,\u201d an extra-shaggy r&b goof that\u2019s good aimless fun. The sweet, pastoral \u201cOne Morning In May\u201d is one of the traditional numbers Taylor likes to sneak onto albums, and then we get \u201cInstrumental II\u201d (another guitar exercise), before they move into a lovely cover of John McLaughlin\u2019s searching, philosophical \u201cSomeone,\u201d with the fusion maestro sitting in on acoustic. <\/p>\n
From there things get sketchier still. \u201cHymn\u201d is prettier than its title might imply, adding horns along the way before bleeding into the bluesy, aptly named \u201cFanfare.\u201d Which then bleeds into the gospel-tinged 58-second sketch \u201cLittle David,\u201d featuring Taylor on\u2026 chainsaw? Which then bleeds into the 29-second paean to psychedelics \u201cMescalito\u201d\u2026 which morphs into the two-minute country-folk strummer \u201cDance\u201d\u2026 which jump-cuts into the closing \u201cJig,\u201d a horn-led instrumental that finishes off the album in a spare minute.<\/p>\n
A generous view of this sequence would be to call it a singer-songwriter suite, but it\u2019s not billed as such, and comes off instead as a half-assed attempt to make something (the final third of the album) out of nothing (a series of unfinished song ideas). In that sense, it\u2019s the perfectly shambolic finish to an album that I described as having \u201ca \u2018some friends came by with a couple of joints and a bottle of tequila\u2019 vibe that\u2019s warm, hazy fun but ultimately leaves the album feeling tossed off.\u201d Indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5945],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-47241","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-james-taylor","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47241","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=47241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51649,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47241\/revisions\/51649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47241"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47241"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}