PHOTOS AND REVIEW BY BUTCH LEITZ

Livingston Taylor brought a humorous night of music, whimsy, and musicology to Stargazers Friday night. Performing a one-man show with acoustic guitar and electric keyboard, Taylor’s voice was at times soaring and pure, and at other intentionally raspy and dramatic as he sang and voiced real-time music change-ups to the audience as bridges between songs.

Dressed conservatively in khakis and a blue button-down shirt while leaning non-chalantly against an outside wall as early arrivals showed up for the performance, those that recognized him and did  a double take got a ready “Liv Taylor” from Taylor as he stretched out his hand in greeting. This is not a prima-donna musician cloistered away by PR men and label reps. This is an honest hard-working musician with excellent guitar chops, amusing anecdotes, and a teacher’s sensibilities about sharing music with whoever will take the time to listen.

I got to spend quite a while talking to Taylor in a free-ranging discussion including everything from Pikes Peak, Boston (where he lives now), Chapel Hill North Carolina (where his family (and I) lived for a time), to road weariness to pop-music culture and the problems musicians get into. We talked about John Mayer, Berklee School of Music (where he’s on the faculty), his brother James (that other Taylor you may have heard of), Carole King,  his sister Kate, and what it was like performing with musicians like Leland Sklar & Steve Gadd on Taylor’s last album “Last Alaska Moon” (Chesky, 4/2010). He mentioned to me that he had originally planned the content on “Last Alaska Moon” to be all in one album with content from the previous album “There You Are Again” (Chesky, 1/2006) but it was too much music. He told me he’s felt very prolific lately - and this seemed to be borne out during his performance in that he seemed to have a near endless well of material used in songs, transitions, and bridges between songs. 

During his performance, Taylor was at times animated, percussive, melodic, lyrical, funny, and poignant, or all these at the same time.

He covered several songs from the recent albums and a few of his older songs including “Blame it On Me”, “I Must Be Doing Something Right”, “Everybody’s Just Like Me”, “There You Are Again”, “Call Me Carolina” and “Over The Rainbow”. He also used bits from Irving Berlin and did a little bit of Stehen Bishop’s “On and On” asking for help from the audience on the high A notes. The obliging audience providing a haunting reinforcement and background to Taylors voice. I was struck by the lyrics and vocals of “City Lights”, a beautifully done number from his “Life is Good” album (Wea Corp, 1/1989).

A warm-up act featuring Kalia Jayne on vocals and ukelele accompanied by Kim Stone got the evening started.  Jayne imprinted her bluesey jazz chanteuse stylings to “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, “Black Coffee” and “Fever”.

An engaging night of entertaining music that seemed to be enjoyed by all.