Happy 40th: James Taylor, Gorilla
40 years ago today, James Taylor released his sixth studio album, an effort which earned the singer-songwriter a pair of significant chart hits, one of which remains one of his signature songs to this day.
James Taylor was unquestionably a familiar musical commodity by the time he released Gorilla in 1975, but he was arguably just as well known by that point for his general celebrity, having married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon a few years earlier. In fact, one might even argue that he was more known for the latter by that point, given that his previous album, 1974’s Walking Man, had delivered disappointing commercial returns.
Whether you want to attribute it to a change in material or a change in the musical climate, Gorilla ended up enchanting considerably more listeners, with the first single, “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” topping the Adult Contemporary charts in both America and Canada while also hitting #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The follow-up single, “Mexico,” wasn’t quite as successful, but it was still an AC top-10 hit on both sides of the US/Canadian border, which is nothing to sneeze at. It’s also worth mentioning that the level of musical talent performing on the album was pretty solid, too, with the character of characters including – in alphabetical order – David Crosby, Lowell George, David Grisman, Jim Keltner, Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, Graham Nash, Randy Newman, David Sanborn, and the aforementioned Ms. Simon.
Gorilla proved to be Taylor’s first return to the top 10 of the Billboard Top 200 since 1972, hitting #6, but the momentum was short-lived: when he released his next album, In the Pocket, the following year, it only made it to #16. (Don’t worry, the JT album put him back in the top-10 by ’77.)
