The road to fame wasn’t a smooth one for James Taylor, and while there were highs and lows aplenty over the past 50 years, he stands among the best folk rockers of all time.

Taylor spent his years after high school in New York, where he formed the band The Flying Machine. The group gained some attention in the region but eventually broke up due to unpaid gigs and Taylor’s heroin problems. Taylor opted to try a solo career and used his connections to meet Apple Records’ Peter Asher, who helped him become the first non-British act signed to the label.

His debut album James Taylor was released in late 1968. The album received three-and-a-half stars from Rolling Stone Album Guide and led the magazine’s Jon Landau to say, “This album is the coolest breath of fresh air I’ve inhaled in a good long while.”

Taylor’s first album certainly got things started for the young artist, but it was his second album that truly made him a star. The 1970 album Sweet Baby James was recorded over the span of 10 days and came during a time when Taylor was out of money and nearly out of options. His situation changed after the album’s release, as the success was unlike anything the then-22-year-old had experienced before.

The album featured some of Taylor’s biggest hits, including “Fire and Rain” and “Sweet Baby James”. It showcased his folk style and subsequently made him a mainstay of the genre for years to come. The album is still regarded as one of the best in music history, with Rolling Stone placing it No. 103 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Taylor went on to produce 15 more albums in a career that featured five Grammy Awards and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. While the work that followed Sweet Baby James is not to be overlooked (especially 1971’s “You’ve Got a Friend”, his only No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100), it’s this particular album that we will take a look at today.

Found here: The Record Booth
Format: LP Record
Price: $3

Tracks

Side 1
Sweet Baby James
Lo and Behold
Sunny Skies
Steamroller
Country Road
Oh, Susannah

Side 2
Fire and Rain
Blossom
Anywhere Like Heaven
Oh Baby, Don’t You Loose Your Lip on Me
Suite for 20 G

Best Song: “Fire and Rain”. One of the sadder songs of the album, this track hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and dealt with several of the tragedies in Taylor’s life.

The opening line refers to “Suzanne”, a friend of Taylor’s who killed herself while he was in England recording his debut album. His friends kept the news from Taylor, who battled depression, for almost half a year due to the fear it would distract him and leave him in a downward spiral. The song also deals with his personal battles with depression and addiction, which can be seen in lyrics like, “Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus, you’ve got to help me make a stand/You’ve just got to see me through another day”.

One of the most misinterpreted parts of the song comes in the third verse, when Taylor talks about “Sweet dreams and Flying Machines in pieces on the ground.” The prevailing thought was the song is about a plane crash that killed Suzanne, when in fact the two are totally separated. The line about “Flying Machines” is a reference to Taylor’s former band.

The first track on the second side of Sweet Baby James may be Taylor’s most popular and is certainly one of his most revered. Rolling Stone placed it at No. 227 on its list of the top 500 songs ever, while Broadcast Music, Inc. ranked the track at No. 82 on the top 100 songs of the century.

Best Line: “And as the moon rises he sits by his fire, thinking about women and glasses of beer/And closing his eyes as the doggies retire, he sings out a song which is soft but it’s clear/as if maybe someone could hear”

The title track to this album has such a great poetic flow that the music could be completely removed, although it certainly makes it even better. He wrote the song as a lullaby for his infant nephew, Taylor. It talks about a lonely cowboy and seems to transition to the lonely experience of the singer in the second verse.

It was well-received and has been a fan favorite for many celebrities, including Garth Brooks and Jay Leno.

Look It Up: “Anywhere Like Heaven”.

Taylor’s work on this album stands as an example of what makes listening to LPs so great: you can find tracks that most have never heard of that resonate a lot with you. This is the case for me and “Anywhere Like Heaven”.

The song deals with nostalgia. As the singer looks into another’s eyes, he thinks back to his home in the country where “There’s a natural pillow for my head/the grass there’s overgrown.” It seems like he cannot shake what he used to have; he’s looking at this person and sees that something’s missing. Is it something missing in the person or in Taylor? It’s hard to know, but the lyrics are so nicely written that re-reading the words makes it worth trying to find out.

Rating: 9.5/10. My first two albums I reviewed were both greatest-hits albums, which means that rating those were not very difficult. This being an album that was new material meant it was no gimmie to rate, but at the same time it was. Sweet Baby James is arguably the best folk album ever, and to argue otherwise means you don’t have an affinity for the genre.

Like I mentioned above, the album is worth listening to outside of the famous hits. Songs like “Lo and Behold”, “Oh, Susannah” and “Steamroller” each offer a little something different but work together to make it hard to skip around the record. Such a feat is hard enough to do when you’ve made a name for yourself; Taylor was doing it before he was truly a star.

I challenge anyone who loves music but is not a James Taylor fan to listen to this album. If you fall into these two categories and are not struck by these songs, then I’m sorry. I really have no idea what to tell you from there.