"Country Road" is one of my favorite James Taylor songs. It should have been a bigger hit, but "Fire And Rain," with its painfully heartfelt, excellent lyrics, eclipsed it on the charts. In his low-key follow-up hit, Taylor captures the tranquility of walking down a country road compellingly via his vocals and guitar.
Years ago, I was surprised to learn that jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson covered "Country Road." The keyboard sets a tone that's about as pastoral as fusion jazz can be. Ferguson's trumpet comes wailing--or blaring, depending on your perspective--in. Taylor coveys the bliss of ambling down a country road in his version, and Ferguson captures the exuberance of such a walk through a loud, uninhibited trumpet line. On the surface, Ferguson's approach shouldn't work as well as it does. Somehow, though, it does.
