How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You (1975)

Performer: James Taylor                                        Writer: Holland-Dozier-Holland
Highest US Chart Position: #5                                Label: Warner Brothers
Musicians: James Taylor, Danny Kortchmar, Clarence McDonald, Jim Keltner and David Sanborn

This is another song from that monumental summer of 1975 when my dad was in the hospital apparently dying of cancer. It’s probably the first real song by James Taylor that I was fully conscious of and I listened to it a lot. In fact, when we got home from the hospital and my dad was going to be okay--for a while, anyway--I purchased my first ever 45s at the department store in town. I bought three of them that day and one was “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You).” Of course I had no idea that the song had been a hit eleven years earlier for Marvin Gaye at Motown, going all the way to number six on the charts in 1964. The song was written by Lamont Dozier along with brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, the most formidable writing team at the label in the sixties. The title comes from the famous line by Jackie Gleason that he would use on his television show. But even before James Taylor covered the song it was remade by Gaye’s labelmates, Junior Walker and the All Stars in their typically raucous fashion, a number eighteen hit two years later in 1966. Taylor’s version hit the charts at the end of June, debuting at number eighty-six. Two months later it peaked at number five and held there for two weeks through the beginning of September in 1975.

The song begins with a pickup by Jim Keltner on the drums, a tight roll into triplets on three and four before the rest of the band enters on the downbeat. James Taylor enters on the second beat singing the chorus. Clarence McDonald’s piano is front and center in the mix, with Danny Kortchmar providing rhythmic accents on the guitar. The piano accents three and four again before the verse begins, again on two, with Taylor singing this straight-ahead love song. On the turnaround at the end of the verse a string section enters, and stops when Taylor sings the word, “stop” while the entire band stops after the second time he says it, Keltner filling while the rest of the band and the strings flow into the next chorus. This time Taylor harmonizes with himself in overdub, along with his wife, Carly Simon, and the song definitely seems as if it was being sung to her. The second verse has strings all the way through, and Simon sings harmony on the first half of the turnaround, with Taylor ad-libbing on the following chorus. Then comes the distinctive alto saxophone solo by David Sanborn on the first half of the verse, and Taylor takes up the second half with another stop going into the chorus. On the out chorus Sanborn plays fills, while Simon’s vocals are gradually pushed further up in the mix as the song fades out.

Though he had covered Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” in 1971, this was actually the first of what would become many R&B songs that Taylor would remake through the years, the success of this song ensuring numerous others. In fact, the R&B nature of this song doesn’t really allow for Taylor’s signature acoustic guitar work. The single originally appeared on the album Gorilla, which went to number six on the LP charts, and also included the hit, “Mexico,” which would later be covered by Jimmy Buffett. The flip side of the single is in keeping with the family nature of the A-side. “Sarah Maria” was written about Taylor and Simon’s daughter who was born the year before. It’s a slow acoustic number with mandolins in the background that is less about their infant child’s personality than the inspiration she provided him. One of my favorite parts of “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” has always been the sax solo by David Sanborn. While Tom Scott may have appeared on more pop songs in the seventies, there is no one with a more distinctive voice on the alto as Sanborn. I don’t think I was conscious of him at the time because the first of his albums I ever purchased was Heart to Heart, and that didn’t come out until 1978. But the song certainly made an impression on me at the time, and remains easily my favorite James Taylor recording of all time.