What is it about the magic of music that can transport you back in time and plop you right down into vivid scenes of your past (I needed a back in time photo for this post – that’s my high school). When I hear Hitch’n a Ride I’m laughing hysterically in the back seat of a ’71 Chevy Impala stuffed with five other 15-year-olds and Mr. Polilli, the driver’s ed instructor, whizzing past trees in time to the music.
This weekend we saw James Taylor, backwards time transport in full force. You’ve Got a Friend, the theme song that felt especially good when things were going well with your adolescent guy and gal pals. Up On the Roof, my teenage coping song, comfort while living in a house packed with both terminal and mental illness.
His “Band od Legends” was aptly named, talent and age-wise. In about 9th grade, in 1903 as JT joked about himself, my friends and I used to do renditions of the Supremes and Aretha. Imagine that? Us white girls (OK, I’m half Puerto Rican, but I don’t think that counts as we are the blue eyed variety, but we do have good rhythm), one of us belting out Respect and the rest performing back up and calling ourselves the “Just a Little Bit” girls. We also did a mean Janis Joplin. This relates to the concert, really it does. James Taylor’s Just a Little Bit girls, included two guys, the scruffy grey bearded pot bellied one just cracked me up.
Jame Taylor, now 60, performed the hottest, stickiest steamiest rendition of Steamroller ever, inflating the crowd to bursting and leaving us breathless and flattened. What a range he showed, as he gently rock a byed Sweet Baby James, the song he wrote in honour of his nephew’s birth. His love for his Vancouver fans openly expressed, even pulling his”Band of Legends” back after the encore to do just one more – “How Sweet it is to be Loved by You.” I might have been fooled, maybe he says that to all his crowds, but it seemed oh so right at the time.
This year I’ve seen Eric Clapton, Judy Collins and James Taylor. All fantastic concerts, but truthfully, JT was the only one, where you could close your eyes, and not be able to detect any difference in his performance as compared to 40 years past. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to go back in time. What’s on the sound track of your life?
Life's a Stitch 
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