SINGINGTHESONGBOOK
James talks us through the album, track by track
1. My Blue Heaven KEY C, CAPO 3RD FRET
This opening track on American Standard begins with a separate verse, a typical songwriting device of that time that we seem to have lost…
“It was the way the song was introduced into the action of a musical, or a little way of setting it up. A bit of conversation that’s not yet the body of the song.They’re great; some of them are really smart. It basically sets the stage a little bit. A number of the songs that I play, I go from the swung thing to a straight eight thing, and it’s the straight eight that sounds like Latin.We actually brought in Luis Conte on percussion to make that clear.”
2. Moon River Bb (KEY , CAPO 1ST FRET)
James hasn’t exactly reharmonised this, but there are some interesting things going on – he seems to have twisted it a little bit.There’s a Stevie Wonderesque solo that sounds like a harmonica, but isn’t…
“This particular track is just the two guitars, there’s no rhythm. So the only other thing aside from my voice is a six-string guitar, a seven-string guitar, and a solo that Larry Goldings is playing. It sounds like a harmonica, but actually it’s a melodica. Actually, in many cases I wrote these solos. I gave the players lines to play, and Larry starts with my melody and then goes off on his own and that’s when it rises up and breaks free of it. If it sounds like Stevie Wonder, I think it’s probably more likely that Stevie and I have the same source, which is Ray Charles. That informs Stevie’s music – at least I think it does.”
3. Teach Me Tonight (KEY B, CAPO 2ND FRET)
This song has lyrics by the incomparable Sammy Cahn, with music by Gene De Paul and was published in 1953. Five different versions charted in 1954 and 1955 alone.
“Yes, Sammy Cahn and Gene De Paul.We’ve cast this with something of a Latin feel and, again, got Luis Conte to play maracas and congas on it.Walt Fowler plays some beautiful trumpet on it, too. It’s a simple piece and it’s essentially a simple album.”
4. As Easy As Rolling Off A Log KEY A, CAPO 2ND FRET
There’s an almost Django-esque swing to this song, which James first heard on the kids’cartoon Katnip Kollege. The tasty guitar fills are also by James, but he has a confession…
“I play that introduction into the clarinet on the guitar. But it’s a studio artefact. I couldn’t play it in real-time. I jumped in and constructed it, edited it together really.This song came from a cartoon that I remember from when I was a kid.When I told Kootch [old friend and collaborator Danny Kortchmar] that I’d cut that song, he said,‘Yes, you were always going on about that song.’”
5. Almost Like Being In Love KEY G, CAPO 3RD FRET
Here the harmony vocals come in, lifting both the song and the album.Typical JT chords such as major 9ths and #5ths show that songs like this clearly informed his own writing.
“Yes, they definitely did. Nat King Cole’s version of this song was my favourite, but I knew it from the musical Brigadoon. It was one of those ones that I learnt early on and basically taught me the chords that are in it.”
6. Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat CHORUS: KEY B, CAPO 1ST FRET;
Ab INTRO: KEY m, CAPO 2ND FRET
Readers may remember Stubby Kaye’s brilliant original from Guys And Dolls. The fabulous Jerry Douglas guests on Dobro here, which works a treat.
“This doesn’t have the energy that Stubby Kaye’s version had, and that’s because that’s a cast album version. It’s live and the tempo is way up and he’s singing it like he’s got a trumpet in his throat. So our approach was to get intricate with it and the harmonies, and we spent a lot of time writing these harmony parts that are in there. It was a lot of fun, that tune.”
7. Nearness Of You KEY E, CAPO 2ND FRET
There’s a kind of Herb Alpert feel to this, with James’s favourite chord moves the perfect bed for some succinct trumpet solo and fills.
“That’s Walt Fowler, who tours with me. He popped it into double time and he did lift it, did a great job on it.The same thing with Lou Marini on Almost Like Being In Love; that’s a line that I asked him to play, a line I’ve heard for years as something I’ve wanted to hear in that place. That really opens it up, too. It’s a song that I’d already recorded with Pat Metheny and Michael Brecker. It’s a Hoagy Carmichael, so it was probably written on the guitar. My favourite chord changes do fall right into it. It was part of my DNA and part of my vocabulary.”
8. You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught KEY D, NO CAPO
This song from the 1958 musical South Pacific is powerfully anti-racist. Coming from that time it must have been an incredibly brave song to write.
“I think so. The lyric is angry. It’s cynical and talking about making children hate, teaching them when they’re young and innocent. So it is a pretty brutal thing when you get right down to it.That’s a song that John Pizzarelli brought to the project. He said,‘You know this one.’ I said,‘You bet I do,’ and played it immediately on the guitar for him.”
9. God Bless The Child KEY C, CAPO 3RD FRET; NO CAPO ON SECOND HALF OF BRIDGE
This Billie Holiday classic is really a sophisticated blues.And she made a fantastic version of it.
“Absolutely right, it is. I played the song with Kootch and Joel O’Brien and Zach Wiesner in our band The Flying Machine in 1966.This was part of our repertoire. I’ve lived with the tune for a long time, so it’s been a long time coming.”
10. Pennies From Heaven KEY A, CAPO 2ND FRET
The organ sound on this is reminiscent of Nat King Cole’s solo on Let’s Face The Music And Dance.
“It’s the only keyboard on the album that is actually comping, playing along with the chords. Larry Goldings plays a sort of a solo in that tune, and then comes back in the coda, in the fade, and plays the changes with us.”
11. My Heart Stood Still (KEY E, CAPO 2ND FRET)
The chord structure on this song, sung by Frank Sinatra and many others, lends itself perfectly to Taylor’s lyrical style, and is one of those that definitely sounds like he might have written it.
“Yes, this one fell right into place. Lyrics by Lorenz Hart. I think that Hart was a closeted gay guy.A lot of his lyrics have this kind of heartbreak behind them, a kind of a furtiveness, and a‘dare not speak its name’kind of thing that you can feel.This song explicitly is not definitely homosexual love, but you can feel that doomed energy to it, that sort of ‘this will never happen’. Because the musical theatre was so tolerant of gay people it has such a strong energy to it because of its denial.”
12. Ol’ Man River Bb (KEY , CAPO 1ST FRET)
This Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein song from Show Boat was made famous by legendary singer Paul Robeson.
“That’s the definitive version of it, and has connected to it all of that political energy. It’s a very dicey thing for a white guy to sing this song and some of the lyrics.This is an abbreviated version of what’s actually a very long song, but I’ve played it for so many years and loved it so much. It’s also amazingly range-y, so I’ll never be able to do it live. b. It starts with an F, because it’s in B And of course at the end of it, it goes up two and a half octaves. It’s a very difficult song to sing. Also, it walks a line for someone such as me to sing it, but I love the song so much I just couldn’t leave it alone. We put very little on top of this tune; it lives with my guitar and voice.”
13. It’s Only A Paper Moon (KEY A, CAPO 2ND FRET)
Those who knows Taylor’s 1997 album, Hourglass, will recognise some of the chord moves here, particularly in the track Line ’Em Up.
“I did cut Paper Moon before with Don Grolnick for a movie called A League Of Their Own, so I had become familiar with the tune. Kootch and I used to talk about doing the song in kind of a straight eight blues kind of way. But it’s one of those things that fell into the Latin-leaning side of my stuff.And it’s very much the same place as Line ’Em Up.”
14. The Surrey With The Fringe On Top (KEY G TUNED DOWN A HALF-STEP, CAPO 1ST FRET)
This Rodgers and Hammerstein song from the hit musical Oklahoma! (1943) can seem rather throwaway, but harmonically it’s surprisingly sophisticated.
“Yes, it can be.The person who really opened these American Songbook songs up, chordally and harmonically, was Bill Evans. Bill just had that touch of gold. He looked at things and saw harmonies and chord changes in them that have become the standard versions of a lot of songs. The Surrey With The Fringe On Top is an old-fashioned song. It’s not a beat that has been in pop music since. It’s got that foxtrot kind of rhythm that’s not a current song.And I actually found it very difficult to sing, because it’s not in any way modern or contemporary.”