Hourglass (James Taylor album)
Hourglass is the fourteenth studio album by singer-songwriter James Taylor released in 1997. It was his first studio album in six years since 1991's New Moon Shine. It was a huge commercial success, reaching No. 9 on the Billboard 200, his first Top 10 album in sixteen years and also provided a big adult contemporary hit, "Little More Time With You".
Hourglass
May 20, 1997
May-October 1996
Chalker's Creek, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Westlake Audio, West Hollywood, California
Right Track Studios, New York City
54:51
- Frank Filipetti
- James Taylor
The album also gave Taylor his first Grammy since JT, when he was honored with Best Pop Album in 1998. The album also won producer/engineer Frank Filipetti a Grammy that year for Best Engineered Album. The majority of the album was recorded using a Yamaha O2R mixer and three Tascam DA-88 multitrack recorders,[6] which were early digital devices not typically used by top level artists, as most major label records were still being recorded to analog tape at that time.
The album was dedicated to Don Grolnick who was a frequent collaborator with Taylor and who died during the Hourglass sessions in 1996 due to Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Background[edit]
Hourglass was an introspective album with lyrics that focused largely on Taylor's troubled past and family. "Jump Up Behind Me" paid tribute to his father's rescue of him after the Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill.[7] "Enough to Be On Your Way" was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade.[8] The themes were also inspired by Taylor's divorce from actress Kathryn Walker, which took place in 1996.[9] Rolling Stone found that "one of the themes of this record is disbelief", while Taylor told the magazine that it was "spirituals for agnostics."[10]