The singer-songwriter James Taylor makes sweet music – sometimes too sweet. More than a few critics have accused him of ladling on the sentimental treacle a little too lavishly at times, but when he hits the right balance – as he did 50 years ago, with his third album Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon – he writes songs that will twang the heartstrings of even the hardest-hearted rocker.
Twanging strings of a different kind, Taylor’s bassist Leland ‘Lee’ Sklar pulled off the tricky task on this album of laying down exactly the right kind of bass-line for the sleek, acoustic songs in which his boss specialised. On this 1971 record, the bass benefits from that luscious production that only crackly old vinyl can really reproduce.