The songwriter David Crosby called “the best of the best”
It takes more than your average singer-songwriter to get past David Crosby most of the time.
The whole point behind most of his material was about progressing the typical folk genre forward, and even if not everything had to be the most complicated thing in the world, it helped when the tunes had a more inventive flow than whatever pop schlock was on the radio. But outside of the chords and the melody, Crosby knew that the best singers are the ones who could tell you a story within a few minutes.
After all, the folk tradition was always about storytelling from day one. Before Bob Dylan even crash-landed on the scene, Woody Guthrie was teaching everyone that the best tunes in the world could help bring people together by telling stories of everyday people living their lives. These were modern parables in a sense, and the first rock band that turned Crosby’s head always started with The Beatles.
Not all of their songs had to be the typical folksy exercise, but never before had a band been able to go in that many different directions and still manage to sound great playing together. Half the reason why Crosby had a good in The Byrds was because of what he heard out of the Fab Four, but once his heroes started making their own business ventures with Apple Records, there were bound to be a few classic artists under their roof as well.
While Crosby, Stills, and Nash may have had a failed audition for Apple when they first started, the label already had their fair share of classic artists. There was Billy Preston putting out the best soul music of the time, and Badfinger picked up where the Fab Four left off when making the best power pop anyone had ever listened to, but Crosby was absolutely shellshocked when he heard what James Taylor could do.
His voice wasn’t exactly show-stopping by any means, but albums like Sweet Baby James didn’t need to rope people in like that to be a classic. Taylor was simply singing songs from his heart, and even when he was singing material written by his friends like Carole King, his voice was the closest thing to a warm blanket that you would ever hear whenever tunes like ‘Carolina In My Mind’ or ‘You’ve Got A Friend’.
And while Crosby was on his own trip with artists like Joni Mitchell, he always had time for Taylor whenever he turned on the stereo, saying, “Ultimately, I think James’ voice reflects the man. He’s kind, lovely and very much a gentleman. He doesn’t walk off the path too far, but what a path he’s walked. It also doesn’t hurt that, for me, he’s up there as a songwriter alongside Lennon and McCartney, Dylan and Joni Mitchell — the best of the best.”
Although it’s easy to single out the classic love songs that Taylor wrote throughout his career like ‘Your Smiling Face’, his best work was when he could make the harshest situations seem almost pleasant. ‘Fire and Rain’ is by no means a happy tune, but hearing him sing about losing a friend that he thought would conquer their demons almost feels like a comforting hug from an old friend.
Not everything that he made may have been a knockout on the charts or anything, but the best songwriters in Crosby’s mind weren’t the ones that kept making hit after hit. It’s nice when the public agrees with the genius on display, but the true songwriters are the ones that can grow from one album to the next.
