By Lee Cole
March is a big month for music in Louisville. Two music legends, Willie Nelson and James Taylor, will be performing in our city at The Louisville Palace. Nelson will take the stage on March 22, while Taylor is set to perform March 25. Both artists are certainly miles away from your average Lady Gaga or Jay-Z, but you might be surprised at the connections between these troubadours of yesteryear and today’s pop icons. Nelson, for instance, has developed a friendship with Snoop Dogg over the years.
Nelson and Taylor have had long, rich careers. Any attempt at summarization here would be incomplete. Needless to say, their music has changed the American cultural landscape. Songs like “On the Road Again” and “Always on my Mind” have made Nelson a music legend. His songs are so prevalent and his image so striking that it’s hard to imagine the American music scene without him. He paved the way for an alternative form of country music – outlaw country – along with Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings, allowing for a music style that could explore the down-and-out, the unglamorous. It was a style of country that didn’t put on any airs.
Taylor is one of America’s most cherished songwriters. While his style is different in some ways from Nelson’s, his songs are just as recognizable. Arriving along with other folk rock artists in the 1970s, Taylor’s music combined the traditionalist folk traditions of the early ‘60s with the rock music that came to dominate the American scene as the decade came to a close. The result was beautiful songs like “Carolina on My Mind,” “Fire and Rain” and “Something in the Way She Moves.” Taylor has been touring steadily ever since, appearing alongside other music legends like Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, and Paul and Linda McCartney.
To miss these two performances would be to miss two of America’s greatest musical legends. While it is important to keep up with current musical trends, it is helpful sometimes to hear the foundations upon which those trends were based. Nelson and Taylor certainly played a key role in laying those foundations. But perhaps the greatest value in going to see them perform is that we can look beyond the legend and the myth and see them as regular men – as a couple of good, old-fashioned hippies trying to make the world a better place with their music. Nelson will be performing on March 22 at 7:30 p.m. and Taylor on March 25 at 8 p.m.
