Chapter Nineteen
Being home for two weeks was a welcome relief from the road. I spent a few days reacquainting myself with such basic tasks as making a bed, washing dishes, and going to the bank in lieu of receiving a cash per diem. Just when living at home was beginning to feel normal, just as I began to settle in to the rhythm of getting the girls ready for school, feeding the dogs, buying groceries, and picking up our clothes from the dry cleaners, it was time to leave for our second stint. Though I didn’t act out my blues as dramatically as my bandmate had done, I understood his impulse. Even with friends on tour, even with my husband there, I often felt lonely and isolated. Normal life seemed a distant dream.
Later I would learn that there’s a predictable probability of depression midway through a tour. Mine was exacerbated by our two-week break at home, which had lasted just long enough to foster the illusion that the tour was over. But in 1971 I knew none of that. As time away from home grew longer, tempers grew shorter—until showtime. No matter how badly any of us might have been feeling before a show, from the moment James walked out to introduce Jo Mama, all negative feelings were forgotten.
David Crosby used to say that the two hours onstage were heaven and the rest of his life was hell. I sincerely hope that David is enjoying more offstage hours of heaven now. Though I’ve always valued my life offstage, I’ve come to share his view of the hours onstage. When a performer is connecting with an audience, all’s right with the world. People who saw the James Taylor–Carole King–Jo Mama shows tell me that what they remember most about the show was all the really good songs well performed by musicians who so obviously enjoyed playing with each other that the feeling was infectious. From the first chord of Jo Mama’s set to the last chord of James’s second encore, the intensity of emotion built to a climax that promised to be nothing less than kick-ass. When everyone came back onstage for the grand finale, there was no doubt. We were having a party.
Usually James took his first encore with his band, then we took a “James and his band” bow and exited the stage. Invariably he was called back for a second encore, which he performed solo with his acoustic guitar. Often, though not always, it was “Sweet Baby James.”
I remember what happened at every performance after James’s second encore as vividly as if I were there right now.
James is standing in the wings wiping perspiration off his hands, face, and neck with a towel. He chugs water from a mug and waits for the applause to become insistent enough to compel him out for a third encore.
As the applause builds, Jock holds a blue jacket that James had bought at Nudie’s* as a tribute to the country music part of his roots. The jacket is festooned with rhinestones, sequins, and other glittery objects. James puts on the jacket, and Abigale joins me in the wings. The exact right moment depends not only on the level of applause but also on how quickly the crew can roll the platform with the second set of drums onstage. As soon as we get a signal from the crew that both sets of drums are in place, Abigale and I enter from stage right. At the same time, all the cats except the drummers enter from stage left. All but Ralph are holding their instruments. The drummers step through the middle of the upstage curtain and climb up to their kits. Danny, Lee, and Charlie plug in. Ralph sits at the Hammond organ, and the crowd claps harder, establishing a rhythm of their own as they chant, “More! More! More! More!” They now know that James really is coming back. (Did they ever doubt it?)
Abigale and I are wearing jeans, Frye boots, and identical tight-fitting red short-sleeved T-shirts. Abigale’s mane of curly red hair catches the light and flickers with shades of crimson and gold as we position ourselves in front of the single microphone on a stand downstage right. We raise our hands high in the air and bring them together repeatedly over our heads in the universal sign for “Clap with us!” while Russ and Joel rhythmically pound the bejeezus out of their respective drum kits. Clapping their own hands overhead, Danny and Ralph join us in encouraging the audience to clap with us—not that the audience needs any encouragement. They’re already at a pitch of excitement bordering on frenzy. Now Charlie and Lee begin to improvise rhythmic syncopations to complement what the drummers are playing.
At last James steps out from the wings. The noise of the crowd becomes deafening as his adoring audience welcomes him back. The jacket alone raises the level another decibel. Holding his guitar mid-neck, James walks toward center stage and waves to the crowd with his free hand. Just before he gets there he stops, inclines his head slightly to acknowledge first the band, then the audience, and then he takes the final step that places him directly in front of the center-stage microphone. He positions his guitar and begins to sing: “Come on, brother, get on up, and help me find this groove,” to which Abigale and I respond in harmony, “Groo-oove”—and we’re off!
We finish with a classic Big Rock Ending, and the audience explodes with approval, clapping and cheering through our final group bow and departure from the stage, with all but James exiting stage anywhere. The final solo bow belongs to the headliner, and James takes it with gratitude. He exits, the house lights come up, and the show is over.
Everywhere we played, everyone left the show on a high note. We couldn’t account for how anyone might feel an hour later, the next morning, or the following afternoon, but during every show we belonged to the people in the audience, and they belonged to us. The 1971 tour set a standard that would become a blueprint for the rest of my performing life.
If only there had been such a blueprint for my nonperforming life.