Sweet Baby James Songs Ranked
Sweet Baby James is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter James Taylor and his first release on Warner Bros. Records. Released in February 1970, the album includes one of Taylor’s earliest successful singles: “Fire and Rain”, which reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album itself reached #3 on the BillboardAlbum Charts. Sweet Baby James made Taylor one of the main forces of the ascendant singer-songwriter movement. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, in 1971. The album was listed at number 104 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2000 it was voted number 228 in Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums. Here are all of Sweet Baby James songs ranked.
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11. Suite for 20 G
“The last track “Suite For 20 G” is the longest and serves as a grand finale to this versatile album. This composition begins as a gentle folk ballad with introspective and observant lyrics about spring days passing by, relationships, love and letting go, being free someday. James’ friends accompany him on vocals in the background.”
10. Anywhere Like Heaven
“Anywhere Like Heaven” is a country-style track that contemplates about life, time slipping by, and visiting a town and realizing that the city is not a place in which he would be happy.”
9. Fire and Rain
“The folk style predominates in several of these tracks that are found in the central part of the album. A very popular and perhaps the most well-known of these songs is “Fire And Rain”, about the unexpected death of a friend or a loved one; it deals with feelings about various things, both good and bad.”
See more: James Taylor Albums Ranked
8. Country Road
“The other folk-sounding hit that came off of this album is “Country Road”, an introspective, mild piece in which he contemplates thoughts as he walks down a road, both literally and figuratively.”
7. Sunny Skies
“Sunny Skies” is bouncy, light-hearted and jazzy, with lively folk guitar picking; it personifies the sun-filled sky as if it were a person, a friend, with its own feelings and actions.”
6. Sweet Baby James
“The steel guitar so prevalent in country music is heard in a couple of the songs here: the title track (and initial song) is “Sweet Baby James”, a country/Western lullaby ballad in 3/4 time, first a story of a cowboy singing a song, then about traveling on a long snow-covered highway from Stockbridge to Boston and beyond.”
5. Lo and Behold
“The preceding track “Lo And Behold” showcases blues and soul gospel, with religious overtone amidst a backdrop of folk guitar. James sings the verses, then the background singers join in for the chorus.”
See more: James Taylor Songs Ranked
4. Steamroller
“The popullar “Steam Roller Blues” starts out gently with a folk guitar along with a blues overtone, then changes pace and steps up the volume midway through with brass horns, adopting the jazz and rock ‘n’ roll sound while still retaining its blues features.”
3. Oh Susannah
“Steven Foster’s “Oh, Susannah” may have never before been sung in the context that it is here, and when a person realizes that this is being sung for his girl friend who so tragically left this world, it is heart wrenching. I can imagine that he may have sung this to her while she was alive, and now, he’s still singing it to her.”
2. Blossom
” “Blossom” is a guitar piece that compares a girlfriend to a flower that brings sunshine and “melts my cares away. In `Blossom,’ sunshine is the big relief with an empty road behind.”
1. Oh Baby, Don’t You Loose Your Lip on Me
“The fairly brief blues track, “Oh Baby, Don’t You Lose Your Lip On Me” very much fulfills the description of blues, where wailing depicts the sadness, and ends with brisk strumming.”
