The songwriter James Taylor crowned one of America’s greatest: “Such a broad palette”
James Taylor is among the first names that spring to mind when thinking of the songwriting renaissance that took hold of the United States during its most countercultural of eras. Writing and becoming the subject of a multitude of masterpieces during the early 1970s, there were few people whose writing muscles Taylor’s couldn’t compete with.
Having said that, it is worth remembering just how much songwriting genius was being exuded from America during that period – the singer-songwriter boom, as it is often disparagingly called. Whether it was the nasal musings of Bob Dylan, the anti-establishment ramblings of Neil Young, or the beautifully ordinary folk-pop breeze of Taylor’s wife, Carly Simon, the airwaves of the late 1960s and early 1970s weren’t void of generational songwriters.
In the mind of James Taylor, though, one figure stood head and shoulders above the rest, and he wasn’t quite so vain as to highlight himself. Instead, Taylor took part in the much-beloved pastime of heaping praise on Paul Simon.
After all, Simon’s work as one-half of Simon and Garfunkel redefined the songwriting landscape of the 1960s, blending traditional folk with pop and rock in ways which had never been done before, or at least not to the same level of commercial success.
“Paul Simon has just always been one of our best songwriters,” Taylor declared to Rolling Stone in 2010. “Paul’s breakthrough came at a time when there was so much in the air, and many of his songs were picked up as anthems.” According to the Boston-born performer, Simon’s songwriting appeal didn’t cease with the dissolution of Simon and Garfunkel, either.
As far as solo careers go, there aren’t many more wide-reaching than Simon’s. Incorporating everything from cheesy 1980s pop to his period entrenched in the realm of traditional African rhythms, Simon’s willingness to keep driving forward, rather than languishing in his past, is a key part of what makes him such a unique songwriter.
“He creates an unusually rich and full world,” as Taylor put it. “And he has such a broad palette, from basic and elemental folk music, like ‘Scarborough Fair’, to later songs with far greater sophistication and more worldly approaches on solo work, like ‘Something So Right’ and ‘Still Crazy After All These Years.’”
In a similar fashion to Taylor himself, Paul Simon has never stopped evolving, either. Whereas an inferior artist might choose to sit back and watch the royalty cheques roll in, occasionally churning out a greatest hits record, Simon is a dedicated songwriter through and through, and has been for upwards of 60 years at this point. In fact, it was only a few years ago that Simon unleashed his most recent LP, Seven Psalms, taking his discography into yet another avenue of inspiration.
There isn’t much that James Taylor hasn’t seen over the course of his own illustrious career, so it is telling of Paul Simon’s unparalleled power within the musical realm that he still strikes a sense of wonder and admiration into the hearts of fellow artists.
