Happy 45th: James Taylor, ONE MAN DOG

45 years ago this month, James Taylor released his fourth studio album, an LP which provided him with his third consecutive top-5 album on the Billboard 200.

Recorded variously at A&R Recording in New York City, Clover Records in Los Angeles, and at Taylor’s house, ONE MAN DOG features 18 tracks, none of which last any longer than four minutes and eight of which top out at under two minutes in length. This was a decision based in necessity: between touring and spending as much time as possible with his new wife, Carly Simon, Taylor had been struggling with writer’s block, and despite trying to clear his mind in Martha’s Vineyard, he still hadn’t completely conquered it. As Taylor biographer Mark Ribowsky wrote in Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: The Life and Music of James Taylor, “He would not be ready again to record until the late summer of ’72, and came in with so little new material that it necessitated he record the album in an experimental way.”

It was also recorded with a freaking ton of notable musicians and vocalists, among them the aforementioned Ms. Simon, Michael and Randy Brecker, Dash Crofts (of Seals & Crofts fame), John Hartford, Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, John McLaughlin, Red Rhodes, Linda Ronstadt, and – to make it a full family affair – Alex, Hugh, and Kate Taylor.

Despite coming together in somewhat of a haphazard way, the album proved to be a success. Rolling Stone praised Taylor’s work, with critic Jon Landau declaring that he had “created an album that exudes self-acceptance, exultation, celebration, and personal triumph not unlike (in spirit) Van Morrison's TUPELO HONEY or Dylan's inferior NEW MORNING.”

Landau continued:

Taylor has never been prolific and on MUD SLIDE SLIM he was forced to weave together a number of fragments and incomplete songs that ultimately gave the album greater force than any of its individual moments. ONE MAN DOG follows that process to its conclusion as it sticks in the mind as a single entity, resisting initial efforts to break it down or categorize it in any particular way. In that sense it may be his best album, even though it lacks the high points of SWEET BABY JAMES, just because it sustains the greatest degree of continuity.

Chart-wise, the album hit #4 in the US and #27 in the UK, and it produced two singles of one, one a minor hit (“One Man Parade,” which hit #67 on the Billboard Hot 100), the other a relatively substantial one which has become one of his best known songs (“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” which hit #14.)

So hooray for writer’s block, then? In the case of ONE MAN DOG, one could perhaps say so.