KENT — Sometimes an older brother can be good for something. In the case of Livingston Taylor, who will perform Sept. 28 at St. Andrew’s Music in the Nave series, it was when older brother, James, taught him how to play guitar.
“James was a wonderful guitar player, and he taught me how to play,” Livingston Taylor recalled this week during a telephone interview. But his brother was not the only musical influence for the teenager. He grew up in a family filled with music by his mother, a trained operatic singer who gave up a career to marry, and his music-loving physician father.
“The environment we were raised in included a lot of musical theater and folk music,” he said.
But even outside the family fold, North Carolina—where the five Taylor children were raised—was a bastion of creativity. “As I got older and I thought about how James, Kate and I came to this place, it’s really in the water of North Carolina that being a creator is a reasonable career path,” he said.
“Creative arts are seen differently in the South than the North,” he continued. “The South suffered an inherent isolation for having participated in the Civil War and having lost it. It really limits your traditional options as a Southerner to become a doctor or a lawyer. That sensibility meant—and means—an expectation that you could be potter, a musician, a singer, a dancer—these are reasonable career paths in Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, but less so in Boston.”
While there are echoes of James Taylor in some of Livingston Taylor’s work, he has carved out his own niche as a popular singer/songwriter, performer and teacher, talents that will be on full display when he returns to Kent Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. Taylor, who has charted Top 40 hits and collaborated with brother James, Carly Simon and, lately, the BBC Orchestra, “is more of an entertainer,” said Matthew Harris, chairman of the Music Commission at St. Andrew’s. “He likes to tell stories, some with a lot of humor. It’s a very different experience to see him.”
It is this innate desire to perform that molded Livingston Taylor’s career as a teacher at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he taught for more than three decades. He now teaches part-time at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. “Those schools are full of people who can teach guitar or singing, so he teaches performance technique,” said Harris.
Engaging an audience is largely a matter of observation, Taylor asserts. “You have to see the audience,” he said. “To give it little offerings, like you give a toddler a taste of applesauce. You watch their faces like a hawk to see how they react to what you are doing. You deliver your vision and watch. They don’t need you; you need them. Your life without them is an ongoing horror show. The audience has to feel better about you when they leave than when they came in. If they don’t, they won’t come back to see you.”
Taylor has not decided on a playlist for the Kent show. “I have a general idea of what I will perform,” he said. “I metaphorically set up a table beside me. I take all these perfectly crafted songs that I can play perfectly and decide which I feel like playing at the moment. I’m tending to Broadway and tuneful. There are melodies that interest me, that combine with the stories I want to tell.”
Matt Cusson, one of his former students, will perform with him. “Matt is an excellent pianist and singer. It makes a nice show and I’m happy to have him back,” Taylor said.
He said St. Andrew’s “is a lovely place to play, but what’s crucial is that Kent found me a good fit for them.”
Taylor’s program will be the first in Music in the Nave’s new four-concert series. Harris said it will be followed Dec. 6 by the annual Handel’s Messiah Sing-in. “The audience is always invited to join in the chorus,” Harris said. “It’s always done well, and people are excited to start off the holiday season. We encourage people to have a nice dinner and come on over and sing. It’s a nice little tradition.”
Another concert is usually slated for late February or early March, but this year there will be a little longer break before the Chorus Angelicus children’s group performs March 29 at 3 p.m. “We’ve been trying to establish a children’s concert, either for children or by children,” said Harris. “Chorus Angelicus has been doing some very good stuff and we hope to get a lot of families. We’re keeping it short and sweet because kids can get fidgety.”
The series will end May 17 with the second annual Mozart in May concert with a soprano, mezzo and baritone singing selections from his operas.
Tickets for the Livingston Taylor concert are $35 can be obtained here: www.eventbrite.com/e/livingston-taylor-tickets-984126838867
