‘Where’s Carly?’ Crowd Asks James Taylor
by Cindy Reynolds, The Post-Star, July 16, 1974
Audience response was as hot as the weather Sunday night at the James Taylor concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, who opened the show with her band, gave solid, if slightly subdued performances while trying constantly to cool off with towels and water.
The center was jammed with over 17,000 people for the sold-out show. They greeted the two singers by applauding before almost every song. Miss Ronstadt was called back to sing one song, and Taylor came out three times after he had tried to end his set with the song that first brought him national attention, “Fire and Rain.”
About halfway through Taylor’s act, several people shouted at him to bring out his wife, singer Carly Simon.
“Carly’s good,” he said, “She’s not here, I wish she was, and I guess you do, too.”
Taylor, barefoot and dressed in a loose white outfit that could have doubled for pajamas, came out alone for his first three songs from earlier albums. He included only two songs from his latest album, “Walking Man,” and one with political overtones, “Let It All Fall Down.” Taylor introduced this song by saying, “I wrote this one over a year ago and I thought it would be obsolete by now, but the man is still in office.”
When Taylor sang alone with only his guitar as accompaniment, his voice and the melodies blended to provide the familiar harmonies of one of the leading singers to combine country lyrics with rock music.
When his band came out for the rest of the show, their instruments sometimes drowned out Taylor’s voice and the beat.
When they played one of his more famous songs, “Walkin’ On a Country Road,” usually played with only a guitar, Taylor laughed at the end of the song and said, “Well I guess we played it more like riding a tank, than walkin’ down a country road, but we like to do it that way sometimes.”
Miss Ronstadt sang several slow ballads and some rocking country and western songs in her repertoire, including “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” and the song that brought her a Grammy nomination a few years back, “A Long, Long Time.”
“Country music is my favorite,” she said. “But I like to give it a funky bottom, because that is what it seems to be lacking.”
Old rock and roll tunes by the late Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers were “boogied up” by Miss Ronstadt and her band, who played just loud enough to provide a strong background for her wailing voice. They slowed down a little for a ballad which she will be recording with Maria Muldaur on Miss Ronstadt’s next album “Heart Like a Wheel.”
Taylor and Miss Ronstadt both said they enjoyed playing at the Center, because their last performance had been in a football field. “I felt like a quarterback. This place is like playing in a real music hall,” Miss Ronstadt said.
Both performers played familiar songs that brought cheers from the audience. After Taylor’s last encore, people stood and applauded for more songs for about 10 minutes after he left, and several could be heard still calling for Carly Simon
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