My iPod music collection is heavy on tunes from the 60's and the 80's, but surprisingly, light on the 70's. I say "surprisingly," because I was 14 when the decade began, and you would think those years would show up heavily on my personal playlist.
Of course, people remember the 70's as the Disco years -- and I was not a fan. However, there were actually lots of artists who were hitting the charts with records that did not have a driving dance beat, and these were the voices of MY 1970's: Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Crosby Stills & Nash (& Young), Lynyrd Skynyrd, Little Feat, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac...
...and James Taylor and Carole King, who first performed together at West Hollywood's famed Troubadour club in November 1970 -- and are now performing together around the world on a bill named "The Troubadour Reunion Tour." On Thursday night, they returned to a spot near the original scene of that first concert -- the Hollywood Bowl. And I was there.
I don't have any Taylor or King tracks on my iPod and haven't listened to either artist in a very long time. And it's not because I didn't like them (which is the reason why I don't own any Bee Gees or ELO tracks).
I think it has more to do with the fact that those were pretty damned awful years in my young life. That music provided me with solace from problems with my friends, my family and my own inability to just fit in... and I don't like to be reminded of that time, or the person I was back then.
They say that when it comes to memory, smell is the most powerful of the senses - but I've always found music to be the most evocative. When I hear a song from the past, I am whisked back to a time when I first heard it.
If you were alive in 1970, there was no escaping King or Taylor's debut albums. "Tapestry" was number one on Billboard's album chart for 15 consecutive weeks -- and remained on the chart for another six years (thank you, Wikipedia!) Never mind the fact that was a record at the time for a female artist. King already made a huge impact on the music industry as the co-writer (often with ex-husband Gerry Goffin) of classics like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "Some Kind of Wonderful," "Up on the Roof," and many more. But people didn't pay a lot of attention to the folks who wrote the songs.
"Tapestry" changed all that. When she hit the charts with that album - singing and performing her own material (instead of selling them to other artists), she helped usher in the age of the "singer/songwriter." Her singing may not have been of the same caliber as Darlene Love's -- but there was no doubt of her artistry. It was a revolution.
Here is my most vivid "Tapestry"-related memory: It's spring of 1971, and I'm eating lunch in the classroom where I've got 5th period Spanish, which happens to be in the same hall as the school's home economics classes. (Yes, at this time, girls were still required to take a semester each of cooking and sewing!) The school piped in one of the local radio stations during lunch hour, so there was a music background.
And then, we got hit by a pretty strong aftershock from the Sylmar quake (which struck on February 9th of that year). I know it must have been a good one: it was followed by loud shrieking from the cooking classes down the hall -- and the disc jockey on the radio remarked on it as he cued up King's "I Hear the Earth Move."
I will forever associate James Taylor with "Fire and Rain," which was one of the songs played at the funeral of my first boyfriend, who died in a car accident the year we were both 19. The lyrics deal with the death of a friend, so it was an appropriate choice -- but all the more personal for me. I love it - but 35 years later, hearing it still makes me want to cry.
King and Taylor appear to be having the time of their lives on this tour. For one thing, they are working with the same backup musicians who accompanied them at that Troubadour concert 40 years ago: Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar and Russell Kunkel. They come out together, take turns backing each other up, and crack jokes with the audience. When Carole King delves into "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," she shimmies and dances so suggestively, you forget she's pushing 70. I know she's worked through a lot of pain in her lifetime. She gives me hope that there's happiness on the other end.
And when Taylor finally sang "Fire and Rain" towards the end of the show, I got through it without tears. In fact, I spent the entire evening just marveling at how good all those old songs still are - especially without the bad memory baggage I put on them all these years.
This makes me think that the 70's are safe for me to listen to again. I'll be adding choice King and Taylor tracks to my music library. Just don't expect to see any Bee Gees.
DISCLOSURE: Tickets to this concert were an early birthday gift from my wonderful friends, Maggie and Terry, who joined us for the show. I received no compensation of any kind for this post. I have no business association with Carole King, James Taylor, their record companies, their concert promotion firm, the Troubadour or the Hollywood Bowl.
