“I seem to write a lot about going from darkness to light,” James Taylor has observed of his songs, whose illuminations have provided insight, solace and pleasure to millions for more than three decades.

He’s often been called a singer/songwriter, but that term – applied in the early Seventies to describe Taylor and others who proffered a more folkish, introspective retort to the rock & roll tumult of the Sixties – fails to recognize that he’s also incorporated all kinds of blues, Brill Building pop, Motown soul and country influences into one of the more unmistakable musical signatures of the rock era.

His is a subtle, seductive magic, owing to the sturdy craftsmanship of his songs, the casual, amber warmth and Appalachian nasality of his voice and the utterly unique way he fingerpicks the acoustic guitar.