Article updated July 6, 2018 by Dave Read

Something about James Taylor’s Fourth of July concert at Tanglewood felt low-key, but that’s in reference to a dozen or so such, which always rank among the most exciting shows of the year. Our expectations may have been out of whack because his July 4, 2008 show exploded into a celebration of his sixtieth birthday. Maybe now that the ¾ century mark is within shouting distance, seventy is not so big a deal?

My reading of the show doesn’t extend to the usual aspects, such as the favorites-filled setlist of 25 songs, the 218 autographs from the lip of the stage during intermission, nor the revival-like 3 song encore when everybody got into the act, nor his awesome band. I thought he ceded primacy to Mike Landau on Steamroller, which his ace guitarist did not squander, before cutting loose with his own axe-indulgence during a coda that would not quit.

The stagecraft of James Taylor

James Taylor is a master of stagecraft, that aspect of a musician’s duty to an audience that cannot help but color his virtuosity and singing. Stagecraft, a.k.a. patter, is the golden thread a singer weaves through a performance. James Taylor is so good at it sometimes that it steals the show; tonight it was spot-on, meaning that I wouldn’t have noticed it, except that I had an eye out for it.

James Taylor’s Lawn Nation at Tanglewood

The Fourth of July James Taylor concert at Tanglewood is a “bucket list” sort of event; it is a musical performance with social implications elbowing their way to the fore. It is a generational thing, with an abundance of kids running around and no shortage of patrons for whom the metaphorical bucket is the last thing they want to be thinking about. Not annual, but since Mr. Taylor built a house near October Mountain seventeen years ago, there has been at least one James Taylor Tanglewood show almost every year.

Here are snapshots of Lawn Nation, as James Taylor likes to call his Tanglewood audience. The images were made around half past six, July 4, 2018.

July 4, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Over the years, whenever James Taylor introduced a new song onto his tried and true setlist, he would mollify his adoring audience by telling them that it sounds just like all the rest. This year he sounded vexed, letting his stage persona go right to the edge: “I know you didn’t come here for no goddam new songs.”

Whether he was merely freshening a stale old joke, or is feeling pinched by audience expectations, it still was every bit as good a concert as we’ve attended in the Tanglewood series going back two decades.

The one variation in the series was his 2002 appearance with John Williams and the Boston Pops when, after reciting Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait to open the program, he returned with an ad hoc quartet of guitarist John Pizzarelli, Larry Goldings on keyboards, drummer Gregg Bissonette, and Jimmie Johnson on bass, with the Pops in an accompanying role. It was a very entertaining set and it left us thinking he was looking down the road toward shows with an emphasis on singing within a looser, jazzier setting.

Tanglewood’s popular artist series

Coming four days before the BSO’s opening night, this show was the tenth on an outstanding roster of popular artists that began June 17 with Dolly Parton and included Earth, Wind, and Fire, Brian Wilson, Jackson Browne, the penultimate broadcast ever of A Prairie Home Companion, with Garrison Keillor, and Bob Dylan. This show was similar to the one Bob Dylan put on 2 nights earlier in a few respects: each fronts an awesome band, each covers songs written by others, and each crafts a setlist that leaves his fans gasping for breath!

James Taylor’s July 4, 2016 setlist

Something in the Way She Moves
Everyday
Walking Man
Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
Today Today Today
Country Road
On the 4th of July
Copperline
Carolina in My Mind
(I’ve Got To) Stop Thinkin’ ‘Bout That
Fire and Rain
Shower the People
The Frozen Man
The Promised Land
You’ve Got a Friend
Angels of Fenway
Up on the Roof
Sweet Baby James
Steamroller
Mexico
Your Smiling Face
Encore:
In the Midnight Hour
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)
You Can Close Your Eyes

by Dave Read.

The Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood is a holy place in the minds of legions of classical music lovers, sort of a chapel to the cathedral – Symphony Hall in Boston. Over the past decade or so, the BSO has instituted a way to ready the place for the returning congregants, inviting lay ministers Garrison Keillor and James Taylor to hold services that are certain to clear the dust from the rafters and get the aisle-wardens, parking-assistants, concessionaires, and ticket-takers into mid-season form.

Keillor, an annual Tanglewood attraction since 2000, can now be counted on to append nearly a whole show of audience sing alongs to his 2 hour live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. And James Taylor, who has played 40+ times at Tanglewood since 1974, has taken to scheduling little series of shows, often with special guests. This year’s 3 night run included one with Taylor Swift, the young country-pop sensation who was named after him. She appeared late in the first set of the July 2 show for a duet on Fire and Rain, and sang her own hits Ours and Love Story in the 2nd set. Ms. Swift’s entrance caused an eruption of shrieks from the youngsters in the sold-out audience that reminded us of the reception afforded the youngsters from Liverpool when they were introduced by Ed Sullivan in 1964.

The Beatles get a mention at all James Taylor concerts, when he talks about his luck in getting signed by them to record his first album on their Apple label. The album included Carolina in My Mind with appearance by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, and Something in the Way She Moves, which inspired Harrison to write Something. This season’s version of Taylor’s band was missing singer Arnold McCuller but included long-time collaborator Larry Goldings on keyboards and Dean Parks on pedal steel, each of whom added serious and searing oomph to the proceedings.

We attended the 1st and 3rd show; together the series attracted somewhere in the neighborhood of 53,000 fans. Mr. Taylor is also on the program for the Gala 75 Anniversary concert July 14, which features Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestras, plus special guests John Williams, Keith Lockhart, Andris Nelsons, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yo-Yo Ma, and Peter Serkin.