JT in the Rain, with Yoyo and Sheryl

You all know what the weather was last night. Rain, rain and more rain. A perfect night to go to an open air concert featuring James Taylor and Friends. We had the picnic inside our friend’s house in Lenox and headed over to Tanglewood. It was worth getting wet for. Lucky for us had tickets for the sold-out shed, behind us was a sea of umbrellas.

A highlight was the trio of James Taylor, Sheryl Crow and Yoyo Ma doing Sweet Baby James as the final song of the encore. Ma’s cello provided a rich backdrop to Taylor’s beautiful singing, and Crow added her own sweet serenade. Just before, he gave a tribute to Senator Ted, which was moving and almost as well received as the line “So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston”
Our friends told us that they’ve seen this same show for four years in a row. He brings the same big-name musicians, like Steve Gadd on drums and Jimmy Johnson on bass. They said even the solo by the big African-American guy in the suit was the same as last year. It was fun to see Taylor and hear these familiar songs, my only beef was that Sheryl Crow’s wonderful hit, “All I Wanna Do,” was a muddled mess with too many musicians and none of it’s catchy beat.

Early in the show James gave a shout out to ‘the little lady’ his lovely wife Kim Taylor. I thought it was fine, but women in our crowd said they thought it was tacky and demeaning. That clearly points out the difference between Venus and Mars…hey, to me it was a term of endearment, to them it was a stick in the eye.