James Taylor Music Review

James Taylor ambled onto the stage of the Beacon Theater on Thursday night and within minutes announced his satisfaction with the results of the midterm elections.

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"It's a brand-new day in beautiful blue America," he said and added mischievously, "The sound of paper shredders is heard in the land."

Thus spoke this singer-songwriter, who might be described as the Jimmy Stewart of folk rock, in his first Manhattan concert in five years. At 58, Mr. Taylor still fits the image of a civic-minded patrician farmer who attends town meetings to speak his mind. He has only to arch an eyebrow and direct an eagle-eyed glare of disapproval at an opponent to register his righteous skepticism.

If anyone were to star in a remake of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (not a good idea, by the way), Mr. Taylor could play Mr. Stewart's title role of Jefferson Smith. It would have to be a musical, of course, and include numbers like "Line 'Em Up," his sly, witty crow of approval at the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon. The lyrics picture the newly resigned president with a "tiny tear in his shifty little eye," bidding goodbye to the members of his staff, who have lined up to say farewell.

On Thursday Mr. Taylor went to considerable (and amusing) lengths to describe the origins of that song, from his 1997 album "Hourglass." He recalled that Nixon had the hunched posture of a creature two steps removed from modern man in the familiar poster of human evolution. He also offered clues to the meaning of the final verse, which describes "a big moon landing." It refers, he said, to a different lineup: a mass wedding at Madison Square Garden conducted by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Thursday's concert, which was repeated last night, was a selective autobiographical scrapbook of music and images, in which Mr. Taylor used slides and film clips to describe the origins of many songs. (There was no mention of his marriage to the singer Carly Simon, which ended in 1983.)

The anecdotes concentrated on his early days, including a year (1968) spent in England when he met the Beatles and recorded his first album for Apple, and went on a trip to the island of Formentera during which an attack of homesickness yielded "Carolina in My Mind." While he was abroad, he recalled, his older brother Alex and his wife had a son they named after him, and so was born the "cowboy lullaby," "Sweet Baby James," which he wrote for his nephew.

For the mostly acoustic concert, Mr. Taylor was joined by the keyboardist Larry Goldings. A homemade drum machine was wheeled out for two numbers. Mr. Taylor's voice, which rides the line between a twang and a throb, has only strengthened through the years, and the chemistry of his singing and acoustic guitar (which often has a banjo-like texture) and the clarion ring of his folk-pop melodies (almost all in major keys) lend his performances a quality of semiformal celebration.

As for his fancifully poetic, often enigmatic lyrics, there is usually much more than meets the ear, and sometimes you can come away with multiple meanings. Is "Secret o' Life," arguably his greatest song, a nugget of wisdom about "enjoying the passage of time?" Or a song that gently mocks the smugness of slogans that advertise shortcuts to happiness? As he performed it on Thursday, it sounded like both.

James Taylor will perform tomorrow in Louisville, Ky.; on Monday in Indianapolis; on Wednesday in Huntsville, Ala.; and on Friday in Columbia, S.C.