MAKING TRACKS: James Taylor

Less than a year after he released the Grammy-nominated Covers, the first album he made consisting entirely of songs by other songwriters, James Taylor has followed up with Other Covers, a similarly eclectic effort that, like the first volume, sheds light on some of Taylor’s key influences.

This time the emphasis is on R&B, with versions of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis,” Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wood,” Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour,” and “Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm,” a traditional spiritual popular during the folk revival of the early 1960s.

Taylor—who at the end of this month ensconces himself at Tanglewood for a four-day residency, including a master class, two concerts featuring special guests Sheryl Crow and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and an appearance with the Boston Pops (August 27-30)—also touches down in singer-songwriter territory with a version of Tom Waits’s “Shiver Me Timbers,” and he revisits his love of show tunes in a version of “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!

The recordings are actually leftovers from the original sessions, recorded at Taylor’s barn studio here in the Berkshires, with his Band of Legends, but they’re as tasty as the main meal. [AUGUST 2009]

THE GOODS

James Taylor
Other Covers
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