By Bernard Zuel
The just-completed US presidential election was not short of anger and disillusionment, and not just the disgruntled white voters who have not taken well to losing hegemony on power. There was also a broader despair about how matters considered settled (equal rights for sex, colour or religion) or factual (climate change) were considered contestable by a strand of American political life.
Singer and songwriter James Taylor had spent a couple of decades in political activism as well as music and came out in support of Hillary Clinton in pre-election rallies. Was he given to despair that we might be no more advanced in terms of accepting science and progress than when his grandparents were confronted by television?
Singer-songwriter James Taylor still believes in the songs and the country.
"It's true. It's as if we are capable only of reacting. But actually getting in front of something and doing something ahead of time, it's ... it's very hard," says Taylor, who calls politics in his homeland "vexing" for its refusal to "get in front" of necessary change.
I put it to him that one positive to come out of the election may be that no one can make the mistake of being complacent and thinking commonsense battles have been, or will be, won.
James Taylor, left, in 1971 in the film Two-Lane Blacktop. Credit: Universal Pictures
"It can all be rolled back: greed never sleeps," he agrees. "And the political expedient of frightening people and then tricking them into voting against their own interests, that's the oldest trick in the book."
That makes a line from his most recent album, Before This World, all the more relevant: "I wish I could slow the whole thing down and have it back again, just one more time." Though the song is about a love affair, Taylor must know that for a portion of his audience who are in the main at or near retirement age, the idea of letting go of some battles, just like they've let go of interest in hearing new music, appeals greatly.
To have a lifelong musical presence such as Taylor, or his compatriot Jackson Browne, still pushing the causes doesn't allow that to happen quietly. Not when new songs and new recordings are still part of the plan, though they may not come with the frequency of his early years.
"My music is a work in progress. It's a slow evolution of a general musical sense, the way I tend to write," Taylor says. His singing voice is little changed from when he saw fire and he saw rain but who believes he has grown "better and better at the craft of writing songs".
James Taylor: "The political expedient of frightening people and then tricking them into voting against their own interests, that's the oldest trick in the book."Credit: Timothy White
Better, too, at recording them, which is why he is grateful he has had to chance to not only get better but sustain a career.
"I came along at a great time to be a musician, a singer/songwriter, a person who is allowed to indulge in self-expression."
That time he came along in – his first hit was in 1971 – in some ways may as well have been a few years, not a few decades, ago. Any reader of stories about contemporary musicians would know it is very common to find musicians talking about their formative sounds being James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Carole King, Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles. A week before speaking to Taylor, I spoke to the 18-year-old winner of the Vanda & Young songwriting competition, Gretta Ray, who said: "I grew up listening to James Taylor and Joni Mitchell: they were kind of like the mother and father of the music I was growing up with."
"That's really as much as one could ask for," Taylor says of artists the age of his grandchildren seeing him as a point of inspiration and aspiration. "To have that kind of impact is a wonderful thing for me to hear you say, and that is deeply satisfying. And I know exactly what she means. I also was hugely impacted by listening to Lennon and McCartney, Ray Charles, Dylan; Tom Rush was really important to me.
"And the family record collection, what my parents played to me when I was a kid, was a very wide selection of stuff: there was folk blues, Delta blues; I listened to all the Rodgers and Hammerstein and Cole Porter; traditional Celtic music; Pete Seeger and the Weavers, with strong political overtones."
In other words, to quote one of his contemporaries: parents, teach your children well.
"I know how important it is, if you've got kids, that you should pay close attention to what the family record collection is," Taylor laughs. "Because it's going to have a huge effect."
James Taylor plays the ICC Sydney Theatre, Darling Harbour, on February 14; and Hope Estate, Hunter Valley, on February 12.
Also playing Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, February 8; Botanic Park, Adelaide, February 9; A Day On The Green, Mt Cotton, Queensland, February 11; Leeuwin Estate Winery, Margaret River, West Australia, February 18.