Can you be at Electric Ladyland at 2pm? James is doing a few songs for RXP
That one line from Jim had me canceling most of my Tuesday afternoon and running down 6th avenue towards 8th.
“Hi, I’m here for the James Taylor thing,” I said to the receptionist five minutes after two o’clock.
“That is on Thursday. Today is Tuesday,” she replied.
In my excitement to meet James Taylor I hadn’t paused enough to notice that I was two days too early. So, two days later I made my way back down to 8th street, I walked past the line of ticket winners, down the stairs to the reception area and waited for James to arrive. Five minutes later he walked down the stairs with Jim by his side.
“Hey James, this is Raman Kia, he is a big fan, and his band Buddahead is one of my clients”
“Hey Raman, it is very nice to meet you”. Sweet baby James looked older in person, and thinner, and taller.
Jim then led us to the studio where James began setting up and sound checking. I then walked into the control room where I found myself interrupting a conversation between two strangers to tell them that Paul McCartney recorded McCartney on a 4 track at home.
“That is right, and you know he didn’t even have limiters,” responded the first stranger who later turned out to be Paul one of the RXP DJs.
“So what you are telling me is that Maybe I’m amazed was done at home?” Asked the other stranger, another Paul, who is the program director at RXP.
“Hey guys, stop talking, listen,” said the first paul as he pointed to the speakers, “that is James Taylor, voice and guitar, without anything done to it - how perfect”.
He was right, James was perfect. I remained in a state of awe for the next hour while James played some new and old songs as I sat about 6 feet away from him and used words like “Swell” to describe how he was feeling. It was amazing just to realize that I will most probably never be as good as he is.
Later he signed my copy of Sweet Baby Jameswhile I interrupted with useless facts such buddahead opening up for James Taylor at the Tweeter Center or me knowing his long time producer and manager Peter Asher. James didn’t care. Why should he? I ama bozo and he is a legend. Still, I was on top of the world.
On my way out I got to thank Matt Pinefield for laying Ruin on his morning show. He sounded less gruffy than he does on his morning show but then again, he does wake up at 4AM. That sucks.