B005S8O7YE EBOK (26 page)

After performing in Philadelphia, we had a night off before hitting the road again. When Charlie offered to take me out to dinner, just the two of us, the prospect alone lifted my spirits. I spent the afternoon walking, shopping on Philly’s cobbled streets, and looking forward to a lovely evening with my husband. We were just leaving the hotel when one of the band members came in. We exchanged waves and went on our way, unaware that our friend was nursing a bad case of the blues. It was his birthday, his loved
ones were far away, and he was lonely. No one on the tour knew it was his birthday, so no one thought to look in on him. Returning to the hotel a few hours later, we learned that our friend had caused quite a commotion. The cat with whom he roomed had brought home a couple of bottles of liquor from Hospitality. After waving to us, our guy had gone up to his room, drunk as much as his body could absorb, and proceeded to destroy the television and toss several lamps, chairs, and other pieces of furniture out the window.

Wow! I thought. This is the kind of thing people do in movies about rock bands. At first my inner adolescent thought, Groovy! But then my outer rational adult understood that our friend had acted out what I’d been feeling earlier. It was the blues run amok, and it wasn’t groovy at all. There was some good news: no one had been hurt by the projectile furniture, and our friend hadn’t thrown himself out the window.

The next morning our bandmate was appropriately contrite. Not surprisingly, he was also extremely hungover. While the rest of us checked out, Jock, on behalf of James and Peter, apologized to the hotel manager and paid for the damage. Then everyone got on the bus. From that point on, we did whatever Jock told us to do. Unload. Stand here and wait as a group while I check you in. Okay, here are your boarding passes. Go directly to Gate 39 and wait until I join you. We’ll board the plane as a group. Do not leave the boarding area for any reason whatsoever.

And so it went: airport, hotel, soundcheck, gig, hotel. No wonder our companion melted down. Soon the first segment of the tour would be over and we’d all get to go home for the break. All we had to do was get through the next few days. Our friend probably would have had to work for free for the rest of the tour to pay off his debt, except that James and Peter never asked him to pay it back. Not one penny.

B
eing home for two weeks was a welcome relief from the road. I spent a few days reacquainting myself with such basic tasks as making a bed, washing dishes, and going to the bank in lieu of receiving a cash per diem. Just when living at home was beginning to feel normal, just as I began to settle in to the rhythm of getting the girls ready for school, feeding the dogs, buying groceries, and picking up our clothes from the dry cleaners, it was time to leave for our second stint. Though I didn’t act out my blues as dramatically as my bandmate had done, I understood his impulse. Even with friends on tour, even with my husband there, I often felt lonely and isolated. Normal life seemed a distant dream.

Later I would learn that there’s a predictable probability of depression midway through a tour. Mine was exacerbated by our two-week break at home, which had lasted just long enough to foster the illusion that the tour was over. But in 1971 I knew none of that. As time away from home grew longer, tempers grew shorter—until showtime. No matter how badly any of us might have been feeling before a show, from the moment James walked out to introduce Jo Mama, all negative feelings were forgotten.

David Crosby used to say that the two hours onstage were heaven and the rest of his life was hell. I sincerely hope that David is enjoying more offstage hours of heaven now. Though I’ve always valued my life offstage, I’ve come to share his view of the hours onstage. When a performer is connecting with an audience, all’s right with the world. People who saw the James Taylor–Carole King–Jo Mama shows tell me that what they remember most about the show was all the really good songs well performed by musicians who so obviously enjoyed playing with each other that the feeling was infectious. From the first chord of Jo Mama’s set to the last chord of James’s second encore, the intensity of emotion built to a climax that promised to be nothing less than kick-ass. When everyone came back onstage for the grand finale, there was no doubt. We were having a party.

Usually James took his first encore with his band, then we took a “James and his band” bow and exited the stage. Invariably he was called back for a second encore, which he performed solo with his acoustic guitar. Often, though not always, it was “Sweet Baby James.”

I remember what happened at every performance after James’s second encore as vividly as if I were there right now.

James is standing in the wings wiping perspiration off his hands, face, and neck with a towel. He chugs water from a mug and waits for the applause to become insistent enough to compel him out for a third encore.

As the applause builds, Jock holds a blue jacket that James had bought at Nudie’s
^*
as a tribute to the country music part of his
roots. The jacket is festooned with rhinestones, sequins, and other glittery objects. James puts on the jacket, and Abigale joins me in the wings. The exact right moment depends not only on the level of applause but also on how quickly the crew can roll the platform with the second set of drums onstage. As soon as we get a signal from the crew that both sets of drums are in place, Abigale and I enter from stage right. At the same time, all the cats except the drummers enter from stage left. All but Ralph are holding their instruments. The drummers step through the middle of the upstage curtain and climb up to their kits. Danny, Lee, and Charlie plug in. Ralph sits at the Hammond organ, and the crowd claps harder, establishing a rhythm of their own as they chant, “More! More! More! More!” They now know that James really
is
coming back. (Did they ever doubt it?)

Abigale and I are wearing jeans, Frye boots, and identical tight-fitting red short-sleeved T-shirts. Abigale’s mane of curly red hair catches the light and flickers with shades of crimson and gold as we position ourselves in front of the single microphone on a stand downstage right. We raise our hands high in the air and bring them together repeatedly over our heads in the universal sign for “Clap with us!” while Russ and Joel rhythmically pound the bejeezus out of their respective drum kits. Clapping their own hands overhead, Danny and Ralph join us in encouraging the audience to clap with us—not that the audience needs any encouragement. They’re already at a pitch of excitement bordering on frenzy. Now Charlie and Lee begin to improvise rhythmic syncopations to complement what the drummers are playing.

At last James steps out from the wings. The noise of the crowd becomes deafening as his adoring audience welcomes him back. The jacket alone raises the level another decibel. Holding his guitar mid-neck, James walks toward center stage and waves to the crowd with his free hand. Just before he gets there he stops, inclines
his head slightly to acknowledge first the band, then the audience, and then he takes the final step that places him directly in front of the center-stage microphone. He positions his guitar and begins to sing: “Come on, brother, get on up, and help me find this groove,” to which Abigale and I respond in harmony, “Groo-oove”—and we’re off!

We finish with a classic Big Rock Ending, and the audience explodes with approval, clapping and cheering through our final group bow and departure from the stage, with all but James exiting stage anywhere. The final solo bow belongs to the headliner, and James takes it with gratitude. He exits, the house lights come up, and the show is over.

Everywhere we played, everyone left the show on a high note. We couldn’t account for how anyone might feel an hour later, the next morning, or the following afternoon, but during every show we belonged to the people in the audience, and they belonged to us. The 1971 tour set a standard that would become a blueprint for the rest of my performing life.

If only there had been such a blueprint for my nonperforming life.

A
s the tour drew to a close I was a mass of conflicting emotions. I was excited about going home to my girls, but I had enjoyed performing with James and Jo Mama so much that I was sad to think that we wouldn’t be doing those shows anymore. Others must have been thinking along similar lines, because the energy level at the last show was even higher than usual. If the decibel level and range of emotions had been elevated before, they were off the meter that night.

And then the tour was over.

As soon as I walked in the door of the house on Wonderland Avenue, my sadness disappeared. The enthusiastic greeting I received from Louise and Sherry mirrored my own delight at seeing them. Our dogs’ wagging tails and “Pet me! Pet me!” noses under our elbows only added to the joyous confusion of our arrival. My first thought on awakening the next morning was heartfelt gratitude that I was free of the airport–soundcheck–gig–hotel routine. I eased back into domesticity as seamlessly as if I’d never been gone.

Before
Tapestry
was released in March 1971, I had told Lou
that I would do the tour, but I wanted no part of the public relations machine in which recording artists were expected to help the record company generate sales. Lou respected my wishes. He fielded all requests and kept me from having to do interviews. Just when I was thinking how happy I was to be enjoying a comparatively simple life, my twenty-nine-year-old body announced a major new development. I was expecting my third child.

My twenty-four-year-old husband was over the moon. This would be his first child. With two children already in our household, adding a baby wouldn’t cause as big a change as it might have for a couple with no children, though we definitely would need to move into a bigger house. The word “simple” no longer described our life. Before I could fully absorb the implications of this new development, Peter called to say that he was thinking of bringing the James Taylor–Carole King–Jo Mama show to his country of origin. Would Charlie and I be available that summer to travel around the United Kingdom?

We would.

Though we had to find a new house and prepare for a baby, Charlie and I were young enough to think we could do it all. During my previous pregnancies I had worked in the studio literally up until the day of delivery. As long as I didn’t leap around onstage, the baby and I would be fine. And because the UK bookings coincided with the girls’ summer vacation, Sherry and Louise, now nine and eleven, could come along.

James also brought someone important to him. In one of my memory snapshots of the UK tour, Joni Mitchell is sitting on a long wooden bench in the hospitality area backstage with one leg drawn up under her as she sketches line drawings of Louise and Sherry. On another bench Louise is playing an acoustic guitar almost as big as she is, while Sherry is drawing on a sketchpad, her long hair partially covering one side of her face. Joni is motionless
except for her drawing hand. Her pencil moves rapidly and purposefully as it transmits the essence of what she sees to the expressive images emerging on each page. As Joni continues to sketch, her long blonde hair glows with the late afternoon light streaming in behind her through the french windows that frame the verdant summer forest of the Ullswater Lake Country. In Joni’s sketches, which she generously gave to Louise and Sherry, her visual artistry captured something fundamental about the spirit of each of my daughters that can still be seen in the woman each has become.

The UK tour ended, and then it was fall. The girls went back to school, and Charlie and I began settling into our new home. The house on Appian Way sat on a steep hillside atop Laurel Canyon. Though most of its outdoor space was unusable, it had plenty of room inside. The living room was two stories high, with a tall fireplace, a cathedral ceiling, and a balcony with a wall of bookshelves. To the
I Ching
, the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
, and other books and albums from the Wonderland Avenue house we added books about stages of a healthy pregnancy, what to name a baby, and how to prepare for home birth.

A couple we knew who’d had a healthy baby at home the prior year recommended Dr. Nial Ettinghausen as a midwife. Dr. E. was a D.P.M., a Drugless Practitioner of Medicine who combined watching and waiting with calm, knowledgeable guidance and prudent intervention. He had successfully delivered hundreds of babies at home with an extremely low rate of unusual incident or the need for transport to a hospital. We had some trepidation about home birth, but the support of our family physician as well as his offer to be on call calmed our concerns.

As winter approached, my baby and I grew bigger. We wouldn’t know its gender until it was born. When an X-ray taken by Dr. E. in the ninth month showed the fetus sitting straight up, I thought, Aww. Doesn’t it look cute sitting up like that! I didn’t realize that it
should have been upside down for a headfirst presentation. When Dr. E. pointed out that it was in breech position with its derrière likely to emerge first, Charlie became anxious, and so did I. But our family doctor reassured us. Dr. E.’s years of home birth experience had included many safe deliveries of healthy babies in breech presentation. Since I had already delivered two healthy children, I was a good candidate for a successful breech delivery. And he, an M.D., would be less than twenty minutes away if, God forbid, anything went wrong.

Molly Norah Larkey was born in robust good health on December 31, 1971—not on our kitchen table, but in our kitchen. Dr. Ettinghausen had brought a nurse, a delivery table, and all the necessary equipment. Our childbirth classes had covered everything from how labor would progress to how to breathe and how to push. Naturally, when the time came to propel the baby out I forgot all the instructions. I tried pushing a few times with no apparent effect, then I gave one final, massive, superhuman push that felt as if I were expelling a Volkswagen. Dr. E. caught the baby and quickly flipped it over to reveal a vigorous little girl with a perfectly shaped head.