James Taylor - 1970-04-25 - Harvard University, MA (SBD)

James Taylor

1970-04-25

Sanders Theatre

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA

Soundboard Recording

192 kbps

Artwork Included

1st Set:

01. With A Little Help From My Friends

02. Anywhere Like Heaven

03. Steamroller

04. Blossom

05. Mannish Boy

06. Okie From Muskogee

07. Greensleeves

08. For Free

09. Fire And Rain

10. Carolina In My Mind

11. Riding On A Railroad

12. Isn't It Nice To Be Home Again

2nd Set:

01. Carolina In My Mind

02. Brighten Your Night With My Day

03. Tube Rose Snuff Song

04. Sunny Skies

05. Matthew

06. Hallelujah, I Love Her So

07. Oh, Susannah

08. Sweet Baby James

09. Fire And Rain

10. Sunshine Sunshine

11. Diamonds In The Rough

James Taylor - 1970-04-25 - Harvard University, MA (SBD)

Five time Grammy Award winner James Taylor was born in Boston, but when he was three, the family moved to North Carolina. He would return to Massachusetts as a teenager, and later spend time in New York and London playing music, but would become a star when he moved to Los Angeles in late 1969 and recorded the album Sweet Baby James, which was released in February 1970. James Taylor T he album, and  and the single, Fire and Rain, both reached #3 on the Billboard charts, vaulting Taylor into the limelight and eventually resulting in a Time Magazine cover story the next year.  The album was hailed as a folk rock masterpiece and earned several Grammy Award nominations, including one for Album of the Year.  This soundboard recording, from April 25, 1970, 5 decades ago today, from Harvard University, captures Taylor just 2 months after the release of his career defining album.  Plenty of songs from that album are present in the set list, including Fire and Rain right before the encores, but so are a host of covers (such as Okie From Muskogee and For Free) and traditional tunes (such as Greensleeves and Oh Susannah).  As you take a look at this concert with 4 decades of hindsight, you might be interested in seeing what the student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, thought about Taylor in a review published 4 days after the show (go here).  I found the comparisons to Neil Young kind of funny!  In any event, read the article, then download this wonderful recording of JT when he was one of the leading lights of the folk rock movement.