The RS Interview: James Taylor

Before James Taylor went out on his recent tour, he had doubts about how much longer he could rock & roll in public. At thirty-one, with a wife (Carly Simon) and two children (Sarah 5, and Ben 2), he began to think of performing his music as being "a bit adolescent." His new album, Flag, had not sold nearly so well as his last, JT, and the photograph of Taylor tucked inside his LP showed an artist who seemed to want to make everyone understand that he was aging.

But when I got on the bus with Taylor and his band on the way to Pine Knob, a beautiful, acoustically superior open-air theater outside Detroit, I sensed that I hadn't been getting the complete picture. Unlike most tours, the musicians didn't seem to be dragging themselves around, trying to fight road stupor. Taylor's tour manager, Eric Barrett, had hired on Richard Norton, A karate instructor, to give the band workouts. And more than half the group -- which includes bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Russ Kunkel, saxophonist David Sanborn, guitarists Waddy Wachtel and Danny Kortchmar, keyboardist Don Grolnick and background singers Arnold McCuller and David Lasley -- were exercising with Norton from eleven a.m. until two. And they looked it.

The tour was drawing well. At Pine Knob, Taylor was about to play for his third of four successive sell-out crowds (12,000 per night) that were wildly enthusiastic. Honest-to-goodness rock & roll made up a healthy portion of the performance, spurred by Kortchmar and Wachtel's thick, punchy rhythm guitar textures. And Taylor, who more than any other singer has been branded with the term "mellow," belted out the songs with fire and closed each hard number with flying leaps that brought the audience to its feet.

Taylor almost never grants interviews. Since a 1973 Rolling Stone talk he had done only one lengthy interview, for Stereo Review in 1978. He trusts only these things: playing music in front of an audience that asks only that he be himself; working with musicians he admires; writing songs; and most of all, being with his family.

When did you discover you could write songs?

I started when I went to McLean, a psychiatric hospital, in 1965. It was where I started writing seriously. I wrote two songs in McLean, and after that, I went down to New York with the Flying Machine in 1966 and wrote most of the music on my first Apple album (James Taylor, 1969). That was a hot time; a lot of stuff was getting written and I thought it was good stuff, too.

I've written a hundred songs since then, and I think that's a lot of songs. A lot of them are repetitive and a number of them are lightweight. But I think I'm pretty prolific.

Do any of your old songs embarrass you now?

I was gonna open this tour with "Blossom," but "Blossom" sort of bothers me. It seems so floral, it seems so cute. Actually, there are so many songs that came after it in that mode that are really a drag.

Did the confessional nature of those songs bother you at the time?

When you write a song, it may come from a personal space, but it very seldom actually represents you. It comes out of a sort of mood of melancholy, somehow. It's almost theatrical.

Where did you pick up the folk guitar?

Well, probably on Martha's Vineyard; I used to go there in the summertime, heard some music there. Someone must've taught me what used to be called Travis picking; I suppose Elizabeth Cotton is probably more to be credited.

When did you first start playing guitar?

I think I was twelve or so. I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar -- a real nice one -- in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five. Then Mark Whitebook built me the guitar I use now.

When did you start playing rock & roll?

Gee, I suppose I started playing rock & roll when I was thirteen. Kooch (Danny Kortchmar) started to show me a few loose changes and played me some Lightnin' Hopkins and Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker and stuff like that. I suppose that was the start of it. But my brother Alex had a pretty educated ear. He went out and listened to as much as he could, and I think he probably got me started as much as Kooch did. And then Kooch and I played blues for a while -- or we attempted to play blues. And then I had a band with my brother Alex down south, and we just played whatever hits were around there, played on weekends and whatever gigs we could get.

When did you hook up with Flying Machine?

Well, let's see, I went down to New York in 1966 and saw Kooch, and he said, "Why don't we try this?" I was with my friend Zach Weisner who is a bass player, and we decided to do some rehearsing. Kooch had been with Joel O'Brien, who drummed in the King Bees. And Joel also showed me a lot of stuff -- I had never known much jazz before.

How did you meet your producer, Peter Asher?

Kooch had worked with Peter and Gordon on an American tour as a member of the backup band, and I was in London to do some traveling and to take it easy, and I'd hoped to be able to sing some small clubs here and there and just make my way through Europe. But it wasn't as easy as I thought it might be. You had to have papers and had to worry about immigration, and I got more and more interested in making a record, a solo album. I went to a little two-track studio in Soho and made an album for eight pounds. I bought fourty-five minutes of time and made fourty-five minutes of music. And then I double-tracked a lot.

A lot of this was on the first album, James Taylor?

Yeah, pretty much the first album. And I started taking that around to a lot of people, but I couldn't seem to get any reaction. I'd heard from someone that Peter Asher was A&R for Apple and was listening to everything that came in. So I got his number from Kooch and went back to the States. I took the tape by: Peter liked it, Paul McCartney like it, too. And they signed me.

What did you want to get out of it?

To emote and really get as much attention and satisfaction and gratification as I could. I wanted to perform, I wanted to write songs and I wanted to get a lot of chicks.

Did you have a hard time before that? Were you shy?

I was shy. I went to a boarding school that was all male, and I think that was an absurd thing. But I don't blame anybody for sending me there or anything. I had a rigorously academic direction that gratified me not even in the slightest. I didn't think I could break out of it. That was mainly why I went to McLean, because I saw no way out of it.

You went to Warner Bros. in 1970 and made your second album, Sweet Baby James. I guess "Fire and Rain" was the first big hit you had -- you were thrust into the limelight. Was that unsettling?

No, it was very gratifying to have a hit. I think there were some things about it that I wasn't really ready for -- perhaps there are some aspects of being a star that I'm not very strong in. Some people can really handle an awful lot of it. And other people just continue to do their work and continue to do it well and have a good attitude toward what they're doing and know how to enjoy themselves and disregard things that are gonna mess with their heads.

When you were going through that period of time, there was a Time cover story that had a lot to do with your family and your heroin addiction. Was that very upsetting?

The press want something that'll sell copy. They pick up on the mental hospital, family stuff, try to invent some category of rock that I belong to, or perhaps they pick up on my drug problem. But it gets to the point sooner or later when you start to think about your kids: "What does your daddy do for a living?" "He plays the guitar and he talks about his drug problems." It's embarrassing to read the drivel that comes out of your mouth sometimes. So I guess maybe the question is, why am I doing this in the first place? And honestly, I suppose I'm doing it because I'd like to promote my record.

I know you don't have very positive feelings about the rock press.

A review can really do a number on you. One of the last reviews I read was in your paper (RS 219). And it was by a guy named Kit Rachlis. The review came out, "Carly's Best, James' Worst," I think was what it was. This was for "In the Pocket." It really changed my opinion of the album. My opinion was that it was good record. Anyway, it sunk me, and I've decided two things about the critics since then. I've decided that it's not worth my while to read them. And the other thing is that it's okay for people to not like what you do. It's okay to put out an album that nobody likes at all. 'Cause the alternative is demographic radio.

Were you feeling, over the last few months, a little shaky about performing again?

Just prior to going out on the road there was all this business about these gigs we've been playing that are about thirty miles away from any city. I didn't know what the gas shortage was going to mean in terms of attendance. It's been two years since I've been out. There are the psychological effects of losing about two years of confidence off my guitar style, because of an accident to my hand.

What happend to your hand?

Well, I was in Tortola in February of last year with Carly and the kids -- in the British Virgins. I was taking the meat out of a coconut. I had a knife -- kind of like a butcher knife. I was just holding half of the coconut in my left hand, and the knife in my right, and I put the knife underneath a section of the white meat of the coconut and flicked it out of that hard shell. A pelican landed in the water while I was about to flick, and I looked off and flicked it, and the coconut shell slipped out of my hand and the knife just grazed my palm. It was a minor cut, but I knew immediately that I'd severed a nerve 'cause I had no sensation, and it's the thumb-side edge of my left index finger. I cut through that. It was really a minor cut, but a major injury if you play the guitar.

Did you think that you might never be able to play the guitar again?

Well, I may never be able to play as well as I could two years ago. I can't play "Secret O' Life." There was a lot of buzz in that. I hope I'll be able to play it again.

But anyway, it's been a couple of years since I've been out, and it's good to be back again. The thing with this business is, it's so abstract. You go in the studio, you make an album. You can't tell whether that's your best performance of it or not. But if you spend as much time as I have, and as I intend to, on the road, that really is playing music for me -- performing in front of an audience. And that really gives you a sense of where things are at. Before this tour started, I thought to myself, well, perhaps this a bit adolescent; maybe I shouldn't be out here trying to rock & roll for the people anymore. You know, I've got a wife, I've got a couple of kids, I'm getting older. I'm not a country artist. Maybe I can't do this forever.

I used to think of the age of thirty-five as being the cutoff point. But I don't know if that makes sense or not.

Do you have any fear of performing?

Well, it makes me nervous, but it's a combination of anxiety and excitement -- there's a lot that's pleasurable about it, too. I think generally, you have to be on top of it; you have to really be able to give yourself some distance from the performance. You have to try to diffuse some of the urgency that can gather around it. Not worry about it too much. Like, first of all, I try to be physically strong and clean and in good shape when I go out. I like to make sure that my guitar's in good shape, that my fingernail's not going to break, my voice is in good shape and stuff like that. Then when you feel yourself really warming to the music, or softening because of some phrase or because of the way things are going or something like that, you can let your heart melt and sort of go down into it.

I have a few things I think about when I need to get distance again. I think about a surface of a pool, you know, like a tidal pool, or a very still pond with ripples on it, and I try to imagine that. And sometimes I think of a glacial plain, a sort of blue ice color. Sometimes I try to think of my heart or my center becoming hard, cold and hard.

Have you gone out on tours where it's just not there, where you're not enjoying playing?

Not for a long time. I think the last time was probably in '73, maybe '74. I think '73. I had an awful tour, but I think it was because I was wasted. I was just totally abusing myself all the time. I was in bad trouble. I was taking a lot of drugs. I went on methadone maintenance immediately after the tour. I also met Carly about the same time. Since then I've been careful to make it work for me.

How long have you been off methadone maintenance?

That tour I was talking about must have been '71 or '72. 'Cause I went on methadone in '72 and got off it in '74.

Is there more camaraderie on this tour, an especially good feeling? Riding the bus was like being with a winning football team.

Yeah, you feel very high after a successful show, one that you feel went well. It's been two years since we went out. Everybody is glad to be back at it. I love being out.

You seem to really enjoy doing the rock & roll numbers on this tour. They're a lot easier to bring off than something that requires a more subtle kind of punch. If I'm singing a song like "Long Ago and Far Away" or "Secret o' Life" or something that really requires that I get into the lyric and the performance in kind of a subtle way, I'm a lot more intimidated by the presence of 20,000 people in a huge place than I am when Russell goes into "Summertime Blues" and people start to clap their hands.

So you think that part of the reason you include more rock & roll numbers is to deal with an audience of that size?

They seem to really like it. They come up off their feet for that stuff. The show is paced a little bit differently this time. It starts off with the usual thing of me playing by myself, and then it builds up pretty quickly with "Brother Trucker" and "Johnnie Comes Back" in the early part of the first set. Then it comes down again to "Rainy Day Man," "Secret O' Life" and "Anywhere like Heaven," and then "Your Smiling Face," "Up On the Roof" and then closes with "Company Man." The second set starts with "Steamroller" and "Day Tripper" and then comes down to "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" and "Long Ago and Far Away." We used to start quiet and get loud with both sets. And now, I think it breathes a little bit more. Also, it doesn't wear you out as much as singing four rockers in a row.

Did you make any preparations for your voice for the tour?

Nothing in particular except no smoke, no coke and no -- you can't overdo it. There are things you do to loosen up your voice; some of those are built right into the set, just because it starts soft. I never had any formal training, but I think that my voice has come a long way over fifteen years or so.

I know you like Sinatra. Have you ever studied his way of singing?

I don't phrase anything like Sinatra at all except the way he retards things. But no, the people I like are Ray Charles, George Jones, Hank Williams, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder. I love Mike McDonald. I love the way Randy Newman sings. And I love Ry Cooder's attitude too; it's great. I like Nat King Cole. Sam Cooke was so terrific.

Your voice is more similar to Sam Cooke's than Ray Charles'. Smooth and under control. Have you ever aspired to sing more like Ray Charles -- do you wish that you could really belt it out?

I consciously have tried to steal a couple of Ray Charles' phrases. If we listened to a show, I could point out a couple of points where it was like that. I could point out what I consider to be a Jackson Browne phrase without consciously trying to steal . . . Yeah, sure I try to; I consciously try to take a lot of things that I really admire.

You like the way Jackson Browne sings?

Yeah.

It's funny because I'm sure you influenced him when he was starting out.

I don't mean to lump people together. I have more respect for the individuals than this. Jackson and the Eagles and Beach Boys have that West Coast r thing; they really bear down on that r. I spent a lot time listening to the Beatles and Stones and playing music in England, so my r's got real soft. But when I listen to George Jones or the boys from out on the Coast, I really fall in love with those Beach Boys r's: the East Coast girls, surfing safari.

Why are you living in Martha's Vineyard rather than in New York? Does that have a lot to do with kids?

We have a real nice place up there, and my family lives up there too. And I find it a lot healthier for me to be someplace where I can go outside in my bare feet.

What's an average day like there?

It's very laid back. It starts at about five o'clock when Ben gets up. And Sarah gets up at eight. If it's my morning with Ben, I'll go downstairs and cook him some scrambled eggs, and he and I will talk about a couple of things, and maybe we'll go in and watch a videotape about animals or some such thing. We might go outside, or I might take him for a ride into town to look at the boats in the harbor. All of this is around seven o'clock when no one's up. I used to have a seat on the back of my bicycle, and we'd go into town on the bicycle. Then I'll come back around the time that Sarah gets up, and she'll get Carly up too. Or vice versa, if it's Carly's day. This is what happened last fall. Since the beginning of this year, I've spent about half my time away from home, recording in L.A. and being on the road. Then phone calls will start and stuff like that. I'll hear from a friend or a relative or something. Maybe I'll have a little time to write. I've got a little studio there with an eight-track.

I have a small boat in the harbor that I row, and it makes me feel good to pull around the harbor a couple of times. Martha's Vineyard people aren't employed in the same way they're employed in other places. In ways, it reminds me a little bit of a certain kind of atmosphere that was in the mental hospital I spent time in. It's a little bit protective.

How has having kids changed your life?

It has totally changed it, 180 degrees. People say you don't change that much. It's taken my horizon from two months from now to twenty years from now. Not only am I thinking about what kind of role model I am for my kids; the first two years of their lives, what you're doing is trying to keep them alive. I want to spend time with them, and I feel bad if I don't. It also kicks you upstairs. You can't be a kid anymore, in a sense. You can; it's sort of like a little of both. It reacquaints you with what that frame of mind is. Musically, all I listen to is kids' records and Walt Disney and Grease, so it's been devastating.

Do you think it's a healthy thing to have a framework, certain responsibilities and certain times that you have to deal with your kids?

Yeah, but at the same time, it takes away freedom. And a certain overview that I require, too.

What kind of freedom does it take away?

You spend most of your time maintaining this environment for these kids to live in. Carly will probably laugh when she hears this, because I've been on the road for half of the past six months. And she's been the one who's had to maintain the environment for the kids. But doing that eats up your time. For instance, if I wanted to stay out until three o'clock and get down and get crazy and make some music, I've got to think about what's going to go on two hours later. And if I wanted to get really drunk and all fucked up, I'd have to worry about whether or not I would hear the baby crying if it fell out of the crib. You've got to worry about driving in the automobile; it's just a big dose of straight. It's what they need, you know. And it's not necessarily what you need, but what they need seems to take precedence in a lot of different instances. It really changes. It's helpful in as much as I'm less likely to die of an overdose, I believe. In a way, it sort of takes you down to earth.

Does it hold you back from getting wild, partying?

I'm not that much into partying. I think I'm more of a depressed type of personality. I'm not saying that I'm depressed, because I've learned to deal with that largely. My tendency is to crawl into a hole and poison myself, intoxicate myself. That was my danger, you know. And so I don't miss going out too much.

Do you think that having kids has helped you deal with your depressions?

My family -- not only the children, but Carly -- has moved me away from the way I used to deal with it, which was my completely over touted drug problem. But the way that I deal with it now is physical activity. I think that it's becoming more and more apparent that that's the way I want to deal with it now. I'm not saying that I'm free of all my problems, because there's always that temptation, and some people say that it may even be hereditary. People tend to want to be drunk or high or up or down. But I find that really pumping your body out -- in other words exhausting yourself, doing some exercise regularly -- must bring all of your system into some kind of alignment. I think that a jump rope can be as helpful to a depression as two years on methadone maintenance or five years in psychotherapy. I think that buying a jump rope for $8.50 can do a whole lot.

Obviously you have to worry about your kids growing into a world with a lot of serious problems. Have you gotten involved in things that you think can help make it a safer world?

I haven't gotten into many causes. I've supported a number of political candidates but not really with too much conviction.

What about the antinuclear thing?

That's something else again. As far as the energy problem is concerned, I feel that the sane course is to ration and cut back. Somehow I'm asking this of a government that doesn't seem to be willing to do anything, to take any initiative whatsoever. I think nuclear energy is very dangerous, but I think the real danger is not necessarily that there may have to be a couple of nuclear plants. The main thing that I worry about with nuclear power is that we will continue at the same wasteful level, that we will start to substitute more and more nuclear for our other, more difficult to attain fuels, and then we'll be back into the corner where we have to depend on it. We need to accept living with less and living smaller.

Doesn't that make you want to get more politically involved? Especially since you have kids who are going to grow up in that world?

My reaction is a selfish one. My initial reaction is to try to become self-sufficient in some way, although that's like people in the Second World War believing that there's such a thing as being in isolation. It just doesn't exist.

So do you feel guilty sometimes that you're not more politically active?

It's difficult for me to find a movement or a group that is . . . I'm into the nuclear thing because it's so clearly insane. The problem for me is to become politically active: I'm not a scientist and I'm not a politician and I'm not an economist; I'm not a student of social trends. My credentials are only as a musician who entertains people.

Given your more stable life, your songs no longer reflect the pain you were feeling and dealing with before; what do you think they reflect?

Just different things I get interested in.

On Flag, most of the songs are about other people or occupations: "Millworker," "Brother Trucker," "Company Man," "Johnnie Comes Back." It seems like you're branching out into more of a storytelling direction.

Yes, well, it's a nice direction to go in.

Why are you going in that direction?

It's hard to say. I guess it started when [director] Stephen Schwartz asked me to write a few tunes for the show "Working," and so I just sort of did that. I liked it; it seemed to work.

Since you've never been a truck driver or a millworker, how do you feel you can put yourself in their place?

I'm not sure I can put myself in their place. I don't know whether or not I've accurately gotten into being a truck driver. I'm sure there's a millworker somewhere who's closely approximated by that song. They are just little imaginings of different people. I know what it's like to be a prisoner because I spent a lot of time behind walls and used to spend twenty hours a day sleeping. I know what it's like to spend an awful lot of time rolling around on the road, you know.

How did "Johnnie Comes Back" come about?

It started with a musical line and something on the guitar. The line just came into my head: "All last week and half of today/Johnnie has been a good little girl." And that sat for about six months. I played it for Peter, I played it for Danny. Danny said, "That's good, why don't you work on that song?" I sat down and worked on it, and it came out, you know. It's about some guy who gets a little girl off the street strung out so she'll keep coming back. The line is, "She only shows up for meals/My medicine chest and my automobiles." But it's just a kind of interest in a seedy little love story; that's what it is. Not a love story, necessarily, just a seedy little relationship.

Are you tired of writing about yourself?

Yeah, I think perhaps I am.

Do you think there's less to write about in your personal life now?

I think I probably just about covered it. Either I've covered it or else I filled whatever need I had to write that kind of stuff.

Are you a much happier person than you were, say, seven or eight years ago?

Well I think I'm probably better adjusted. I see a certain continuity and I know better how to deal with those times of insecurity or those feelings of trepidation.

Do you still go through the same kind of depressions you used to experience?

That still happens, but it's okay now somehow.

Do you know why it happens?

I'm not sure. Some of it may be physical. I did a lot of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy, you know. And everybody has the blues -- that's what it comes down to.

Did you find out anything in psychotherapy?

No, I never did seem to get too close to solving anything. I have a few personal ideas having to do with my family situation and things like that. But in fact I can't really explain it away very well. I'm still subject to it from time to time. Sort of like unexplainable onsets of black moods. But I've grown used to it and know how to deal with them.

When you say black mood, what is that like?

It starts with just not feeling terribly well. But there's a type of despair that I experience as being very deep.

So what do you do about it now when it happens?

Talk to Carly about it. Ask her to please answer the phone for me. Ask her for some sort of reassurance. And she's good at that; she's very supportive. She's also subject to phobias and anxiety attacks, as I'm sure everyone is. But we can be relatively supportive of each other.

Would you say that the beginning of your relationship with her was a real turning point in being able to deal with a lot of those problems?

I would say so, yeah. Our relationship and my family is the focus of my life. And the other thing that's important to me is my working relationship with the people I'm touring with.

Do you ever want to get back to an intensity like that of "Fire and Rain"? Something that would knock people on the seat of their pants?

Again, it wasn't any kind of premeditated attempt at knocking down an audience. I was just writing down a song for myself. The song came in three different portions. The first verse came in a basement apartment in London. The second verse, in a hospital room in Manhattan where I was recovering from what made me leave England -- some hard times and stuff, and the third verse was written in Austin Riggs hospital in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. So it's a three-month period of time in 1968. It's like three samplings of what I went through then.

You have a beautiful apartment in New York and a house in Martha's Vineyard, and you've got a stable family and enough money so you don't have to worry about that. Do you think that your lifestyle breeds a kind of complacency?

More than complacency, it occupies my time more and more. To get up early in the morning with the children and to be part of the running of the house. I still play and try to write and stuff. I write and album a year; I probably write ten to twelve songs a year, which is okay. Carly is always writing, too. When I'm not working, she is. Although we're quite comfortable, our schedule is really very hectic. We have times when there's very little going on: for writing, it's very necessary to have some time like that. But complacent, I don't know if that's so much the word. I want to write great songs, but I don't want to suffer, you know. I'm not going to wear a couple of shoe sizes too small just because I might write a better song.

I think that Gorilla [1975] and In the Pocket [1976] had some of my best material, although neither of those sold terribly well. I much prefer my later material, as a matter of fact. I don't consider any of it great art, but I much prefer my later material. I think "Sleep Come Free Me" is as good a song I've written in a long time. And I think "Millworker" is, too. It may not affect a large cross section of a generation the same way "Fire and Rain" did, but you never have that in mind when you write a song.

Why do you think your work is not great art?

Well, I think "great art" is a pompous phrase. To me, that's a little tough to swallow and it's tough to spit out, too. I think Sam Cooke singing "I Taught My Baby How to Cha Cha Cha" is a terrific song, but you'd have a hard time calling it great art.

So you think that "great art" is an illusory phrase?

I don't think it necessarily applies to what I consider to be folk music. I think the best I'm hoping for is just a real good song.

What kind of music do you like to listen to?

I like light classical music, and I have a few tapes that from time to time are popular with me. There's no kind of music that I really go for. Sometimes I get tapes from friends of mine that I like to listen to. There's a record called The Pygmies of the Ituri Forest," which is real good. I like to listen to some Copland and Debussy. It's all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. I like to listen to David Sanborn and Charlie Parker. I like the Brazilians an awful lot. For a while I listened to reggae a bunch. And there will be a period when I'll get hooked on a record, like the Spinners, one of their records that I've been playing a lot. And I hear a lot of Carly's and my music just because we're making it all the time.

"B.S.U.R." on the new album seems to relate to you and Carly?

The chorus came first, since it's all in initials, and I wanted to write the whole tune that way, just a sort of -- exercise. You find people who write lyrics spend a lot of time making spoonerisms. It's one of those relationship songs. The lyric didn't seem to be about me and Carly at all, but she finds some correlations. I suppose it maybe -- I mean, after all, I wrote it. It's probably not about Haldeman and Erlichman.

Do you think, as the song suggests, that you fall down in her estimation?

I think that sometimes my behavior threatens her, 'cause she feels I might really harm myself. And it's hard to commit yourself emotionally to someone who could do damage to you through your commitment to them. It's this business of whether or not you can afford to really put your life in the hands of someone who may not be in enough control of themselves to keep themselves alive. And I think there have been times when Carly worried about that with me. It's not that she was trying to control me; she was just trying to decide whether or not she was gonna be able to stand to love me if she might have to lose me. And there were years and there have been instances when that was possible.

You mean when you were back on drugs?

Yeah, on drugs, you know, drunk driving, anything.

So, you never feel the drug problem is totally past, even if, as now, you're feeling good?

I like to think that this is the point at which I finally get off the cycle. It's not that I've been wasted for the past two years; I've been in pretty good shape. I'm subject to binges, which frightens me. And I want to put that behind me.

Is there a lot of competition between you and Carly?

There's a predictable amount, but it seems to be something we can handle. It makes things hectic. If both of us try to make an album a year, it's really tough. If we stagger them one year and then the next year, that may work. I think that may make some sense.

Well this year you both came out with albums at the exact same time?

That was because I had intended to record a year ago, in June, but I opened my hand up in February and it was pretty much unusable at that point. And Carly had already booked time [in the studio]. It was really my accident that landed my recording in the middle of Carly's. It was tough. It was hard for us to do it. When one of us is recording, the other one should be around to help with the family and to be supportive musically.

Do you go through periods when you're really blocked as far as songwriting goes, and Carly is whipping out a bunch of songs? Do you sit there and resent her?

Well sometimes she comes and shows me something that she's just come up with. I say, "That's beautiful," but at the same time I say, "Jesus, I should write something." Her melodies are so strong. That's the main thing that I envy about her songwriting. Her lyrics are good, too. And God knows her instrument's terrific. She writes songs that you can sing without having any kind of accompaniment and that's a good melody. But it's like there's a trade-off. As difficult as it is for us both to be in the same business, there's the benefit of our really understanding and being able to support each other. 'Cause we really know about it. When I find her being worried about something that's really bullshit, I can, with real authority, tell her that she's worrying about something that doesn't deserve her attention. And she's the same way, too.

Are there times when you feel like your career's going great, her career's not going great? Does that cause tension?

Yeah, I think it does. She's, generally speaking, bigger about it than I am. She's more generous than I am. She feels she can get more satisfaction from the fact that I'm doing well than I can from the fact that she's doing well. What I'm thinking of specifically is when she did No Secrets and I did One Man Dog [late 1972]. One Man Dog sold less than anything I ever put out. And hers sold a whole lot. There were different success levels going on, and yeah, it got to me.

So, it did affect your relationship at the time?

Well, yeah, I guess it did a little bit. More than affecting our relationship, it affected the way I felt, and that affected our relationship. It's more of a positive factor than a negative one to be in the same business. But it's true that sometimes she gets involved -- it's almost like there's never a respite from dealing with show business. Because when I'm not worrying about it, she is. And if we try to give ourselves a break by both releasing [albums] at the same time, then neither of us is there to support the other one (a) when we're making the album, and (b) about how the album's doing.

So this is that kind of time, I guess?

This is that kind of time. Carly's having a rough time now. She feels hurt and disillusioned, and I don't blame her. There's an attitude to adopt about this thing. It has to do with realizing where things are really at. It's harder for her to do it without many other outlets, and also feeling -- as she does -- much more restricted by family life and raising children than I appear to be.

Well, are you gonna bring her out on tour with you; is that gonna work out?

Well, she's gonna come out and sing a song in the show with me. It's not gonna be the same as it would be if she were working from her own material and she were billed herself and the audiences were coming to see her. She's a surprise guest, and it's great. And I think it's also very gratifying. But at the same time it's part of my trip, and I think it'll be frustrating for her, too.

None of this stuff can shape us, you know. But it can certainly get in the way of our feelings about making music, and that's where the media and the business can be a little bit poisonous.

But the key thing is you enjoy making music.

I want to concentrate and do that on the road. And you may be able to do that if you can say to yourself, "I'm not going to make an album for commercial consumption, I'm going to make an album that I want to make; I'm willing to write this one off." I'd like to make an album like that. I probably won't.

You were involved with Joni Mitchell in the early Seventies, and it drew a lot of publicity, which must have really changed the relationship.

I wasn't really very aware of it, but yes it must have changed the relationship. The relationship was what it was. Carly and I also were very public.

What does it do when you see stories about you and Carly? Do you ignore them?

I don't know anything else. I think it's necessary for Carly and me both to have identities. I don't think I could be with a woman who didn't. She and I are in many ways complementary. Often she fills an area that I am lacking in.

It's hard for me to talk about Joni because I still feel very strongly about her. I saw her recently, and she and I spent a little time talking. Not to get into what our personal relationship was like, but I've never seen anyone create the way she does. An aspect of that leaves another side of her life lacking. She, more than I, I think, has a need for creativity, for her art. More of a need to relieve herself, to satisfy herself, than almost anyone else I've ever met.

Do you think that that happens at the sacrifice of an enduring relationship?

Perhaps it's because of the difficulty of an enduring relationship. I don't know which comes first.

Do you think that, talking about yourself in terms of creativity, you're inspired less frequently now, that your most inspired songs are behind you?

No, I don't. I think that it's just changing to a different type of work. It was a much more personal and urgent need, and now it's a power that I can . . . if I can get some kind of a spiritual . . . spiritual sounds a little bit too magical. If I could get some kind of a hold on myself, I could be able to direct this capacity I have to share my point of view with other people. A song can do incredible things incredibly fast.

Where would you say that comes out in your recent songs?

I think "Secret o' Life" is a spiritual song. The reason I call it "Secret o' Life," sounding like an o, is because it sounded like such a preposterous title. So presumptuous. So I wanted to make it sound like a lifesaver flavor, you know. I think that song is about the decaying universe, about entropy, about being in the Now. I can't wait to imagine what Randy Newman will say if he reads that. He's so caustic. Jesus, he's amazing.

Do you consider yourself more of a craftsman than before?

Well, I want to think that I am. "Johnnie Comes Back" or "I Was Only Telling a Lie" or "Secret o'Life" -- songs on the past couple albums -- I have to believe that they're as good as the few songs on my first album. They don't have the same direct connection with the audience. My energy was channeled directly into those things because of a buildup; there was a flow that happened when I got access to be able to communicate that way. And now I'm much more spread out, but I'm no less capable of feeling strongly, and -- aside from not wanting to believe that it's all behind me -- it may be possible that my best work is behind me now. But it certainly isn't a very productive frame of mind.

I feel very strongly, and Carly also has recently -- because of some real disappointments in her career, and also because of some disillusionment with the record business, which she has been less cynical about and more willing to participate in in the past than I have been -- that the main thing that gets in the way of our music and our growth is the industry itself.

How so?

Just because something that's successful tends to get held onto. I mean, they want to keep that coming.

So you think that a record company inhibits . . .

Well no, they also say you gotta change, you gotta change. Also, if you start being dissatisfied, if you get anything less than a gold record, if you start going nuts about every reviewer who want to detract from what you're trying to become, and if you listen to every person who tries to put you in a bag, it will just drive you absolutely nuts. What you have to do is somehow deemphasize and take away the urgency of that. Of that whole industry frame of mind and media slant on things. For me to be able to go out and work helps, you see. All of a sudden, I'm valid in that context. Carly doesn't have that access. So she puts out a record every two years and when all of a sudden it doesn't get the promotion she thinks it should and when it gets reviewed just totally off the wall, if that's all she gets, that can be devastating. I got a review in Billboard that showed a picture of my last album [JT]. They said I was using Jackson Browne's band and that my vocals were bland and it drove me nuts. So I did read a review; I just totally confirmed my worst fears.

In other words, I put out this album now, the cover is two colors on one side and two on another and it's called Flag, which is a little bit obscure.

Why is it called Flag?

An album is a flag. Two years' work, a personal statement. It's a standard in the sense that a standard is a flag. It represents you; you put it out there; you express; let's run it up the flagpole. The flag on the cover means "man overboard," too. I didn't know that that was the case at the time. Anyway, and there's a picture on the inside of me looking skeptical. The photo session lasted for half an hour. We said, okay, we'll take this home. We'll make the front pink and yellow. We'll make the back turquoise and dark blue. Let's put the thing out. I spent very little time agonizing over what the cover would be. And it's all fast on one side, or mostly all fast on one side, and on the other side it's all slow; it's hot and cold and stuff. And I've gotten a lot of feedback that people don't want to see a picture of me looking like a guy not being able to move his bowels. They don't want to see an album cover without my face on it, the record company says. They want Sweet Baby James. And the audiences may want Sweet Baby James too. So I thought the next cover I make, I'll get someone with an airbrush, I'll get a tan on my ass and I'll get someone to photograph it with one of those lights that makes a halo around you, and I'll call it James Taylor -- Like You Like Him.