October Road

• Track Listing

October Road is singer-songwriter James Taylor's fifteenth album. It was originally released in 2002. It has been certified Platinum. The album reached number four in Billboard 200. The reunion with producer Russ Titelman (they last collaborated on 1976's In the Pocket) seems to have gratifyingly inspired as much gentle reassessment as retrenchment. Longtime Titelman compatriot Ry Cooder guests on the title track, a song whose autumnal comforts fit the Taylor canon and other album tracks like "September Grass," "Baby Buffalo," "My Traveling Star," and "On the Fourth of July" (the story of Taylor's romantic meeting with current wife Kim) like an old slipper. "Belfast to Boston" cries for peace in Ireland and elsewhere with some surprising Gaelic flourishes, "Whenever You're Ready" throws some Brazilian rhythms and jazzy horns into the mix, and Dave Grusin's slick orchestral arrangement turns "Mean Old Man" into an elegant cabaret surprise. A little more of this musical adventure amidst the familiar romantic ballads and paeans to the comfort of home and family-including a gorgeously spare cover of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"