James Taylor at work on Broadway musical ‘Fire and Rain' with writer Tracy Letts

Boston Globe

17-03-2025

'It feels like the first time I performed with a symphony orchestra, John Williams and the Boston Pops, stepping into a new world at the highest possible level,' Taylor said. 'Who knows where it will go? But if it bombs, it won't be because we couldn't get the right people. We got the right people.'
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The celebrated singer, who turned 77 last week, wrote the song '
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Taylor said there was never any discussion about of calling the musical, 'Fire And Rain.'
'It just seems to have happened,' he said. 'Like a working title that sticks.'
Related
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Letts, an acclaimed American playwright, actor, and screenwriter, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play for '
Jukebox musicals have become a staple of Broadway (and Off-Broadway) pretty much since 'Mamma Mia!', the enormously successful 1999 musical based on the songs of ABBA. Since then, countless artists — Alanis Morissette, Alicia Keys, Billy Joel, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Carole King, Cher, Donna Summer, Huey Lewis, Green Day, Michael Jackson, Tupac Shakur, and Tina Turner, among others — have seen their music catalogs used to tell a story on stage. (Some, like Green Day's 'American Idiot,' have been hits; others, like Lewis's 'The Heart of Rock and Roll,' bombed and closed soon after opening.)
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Taylor said he and Letts have been talking about this project for a while, but a workshop with actors and musicians in New York in December helped sketch the contours of the story.
'It was like the ice breaking up in the river. It was just an amazingly fluid and productive process for Tracy to stage it in that reading context,' Taylor said. 'You're just in a room with people, trying different things, working with musicians on the songs, and trying to translate them for actors who are singing them.'
Taylor, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Paul McCartney in 2000, grew up in
Chapel Hill,
N.C. He's lived for much of his adult life in the Berkshires, Martha's Vineyard, and New York City. In the five decades since 'Fire and Rain,' Taylor has sold 100 million records, with hits that include 'Carolina In my Mind,' 'Sweet Baby James,' 'You've Got a Friend' (written by his friend Carole King), 'Country Road,' 'How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You),' and 'Shower the People.'
Taylor said the musical will touch on themes familiar to fans of his music, including addiction, love, loss, heartbreak, spiritual connection, and family. As much as he's enjoyed collaborating with Letts, Taylor said entrusting his work to someone else has been an adjustment.
'I think it's fascinating, Tracy's process of synthesizing things. It's different from songwriting, but it's connected,' he said. 'I've always thought being a singer-songwriter — writing about very personal experiences and illustrating one's navigation through the world — was very much in my control.
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'But this is a real team and it's fabulous,' he said.
Taylor isn't stressed about the project — he's seen fire and he's seen rain, after all — and he insists he won't be bothered if, in the end, it isn't high art. 'It can be entertainment or it can be more, we don't know,' Taylor said. 'As a matter of fact, it
has
to be entertainment, and maybe something else as well.'
Mark Shanahan can be reached at