Sweet Baby James is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter James Taylor, and his first release on Warner Bros. Records. Released in February 1970, the album includes one of Taylor's earliest successful singles: "Fire and Rain", which reached #3 on the BillboardHot 100. The album itself reached #3 on the Billboard Album Charts. Sweet Baby James made Taylor one of the main forces of the ascendant singer-songwriter movement. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, in 1971. The album was listed at #104 on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2000 it was voted number 228 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.
Background
The album, produced by Peter Asher, was recorded at Sunset Sound, Los Angeles, California, between December 8 and 17, 1969 at a cost of only $7,600 out of a budget of $20,000. Taylor was "essentially homeless" at the time the album was recorded, either staying in Asher's home or sleeping on a couch at the house of guitarist Danny Kortchmar or anyone else who would have him. The song "Suite for 20 G" was so named because Taylor was promised $20,000 once the album was delivered. With one more song needed, he strung together three unfinished songs into a "suite", and completed the album. The album produced two charting singles: "Fire and Rain," backed by "Anywhere Like Heaven," which peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 31, 1970, and "Country Road," backed by "Sunny Skies," which peaked at #37 on March 20, 1971. An additional single, "Sweet Baby James," backed by "Suite for 20 G," did not chart.
Critical reception
Reviewing for Rolling Stone in 1970, Gary von Tersch observed in the music "echoes of the Band, the Byrds, country Dylan and folksified Dion", which Taylor manages to negotiate into a "very listenable record that is all his own". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was harsher in his appraisal of the album, saying that "Taylor's vehement following bewilders me; as near as I can discern, he is just another poetizing simp. Even the production is conventional. For true believers only." In a retrospective review, AllMusic's William Ruhlmann was more receptive to "Taylor's sense of wounded hopelessness", believing it reflected "the pessimism and desperation of the 1960s hangover that was the early '70s" and "struck a chord with music fans, especially because of its attractive mixture of folk, country, gospel, and blues elements, all of them carefully understated and distanced."
Accolades
In 2003 the TV networkVH1 named Sweet Baby James the 77th greatest album of all time.
