“The first of December was covered with snow
So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston”- James Taylor Sweet Baby James 1970.
Every December 1st I sing Sweet Baby James at least once . It takes me back to the first time I heard the album of the same name, actually an 8-track tape deck in my friend’s 1967 Volkswagen bug. Fire and Rain was the big song, and we had to wait through lesser favourites while the song track came around again.
One of the songs that we never heard much was Sweet Baby James. This was because both tracks were parallel, which meant that once you heard one you had to wait until the tape looped to hear the other. The other thing it meant was that we never heard it until we let the tape roll through its path. If Fire and Rain made James Taylor a star then Sweet Baby James lifted him into the realm of great songwriters.
It was written for the son of his brother, Alex, as Taylor was driving through Carolina to meet Alex’s son. It mirror’s the tempo of Rock-a-Bye Baby and brings in cowboy references.
It was one of the first travelling songs at a time when a whole generation was on the move, especially the line:
“With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go.”
Then came his version of Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend and James Taylor became a household name.