Taylor to Songbirds: ‘You’Ve Got a Friend.’

By SCOTT HARPER

By Scott Harper

The Virginian-Pilot

Virginia beach

Singer and songwriter James Taylor will have more than Carolina on his mind Thursday night when he plays an outdoor concert here.

He also will be thinking about Virginia’s Eastern Shore and its neotropical songbirds.

The famed rock ‘n’ roller and folk star said Tuesday that he will donate most of the proceeds from his Virginia Beach show to the Southern Tip Partnership, a coalition of government agencies and environmental groups dedicated to preserving songbird habitat on the lower Eastern Shore.

The area is a haven for thousands of migratory birds that stop at the southern tip, on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean, to rest and feed during their annual trek between Canada and South America.

The site in Northampton County also is under intense development pressure. Taylor hopes his donation will aid environmental groups in purchasing more sensitive lands so they remain in their natural, scrubby state.

He expects his gift will amount to about $200,000, making it one of the richest benefit concerts for environmental causes ever in Virginia, organizers say.

Wearing faded jeans, sneakers and a denim shirt, the longtime environmental activist explained his motives and attraction to the Shore at a news conference at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater, where he opens a summer concert tour Thursday.

“It feels good to me to play music and try to benefit this effort,” he told reporters. “It would be a real tragedy if we quietly and unconsciously let this area disappear overnight, which could really happen.”

Taylor has contributed money to the Southern Tip Partnership before, funds that helped buy a large tract of seaside wetlands and woodlands, which later was added to the Magothy Bay Natural Area Preserve.

He has never seen the windswept area in person but hopes to do so today , along with his wife and two children.

“We want to do some kayaking there, walk around a little bit,” he said.

Taylor learned of the southern tip and its plight from Laura McKay, state director of the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program. She has known Taylor and his wife, Kim, for years.

McKay said she “never thought James would do a benefit here, and I never, ever asked him.” Instead, she said, Taylor approached her with the idea last year, at another benefit concert, this one in Richmond for combating child abuse.

“Obviously I was absolutely thrilled,” she said. “We’d never had anything like this.”

Tickets are still available.

Taylor has been active in the National Resources Defense Council, an influential environmental group, since the 1980s and has assisted other green causes for years. They include a recent benefit concert in New York City for the Rain Forest Foundation, a group started by Sting, a friend and fellow rock star.

Taylor traces his interest in the subject to his father, a former scientist and doctor, and to his own psychology.

“With songwriting, I focus on my emotions and my emotional life, which is kind of selfish, really,” he said. “It feels good to get out of myself” by learning about and advocating for the environment.

“I just felt compelled to join in,” he said. “It’s sort of like, ‘Put me in, Coach’ and let me know how I can help out.”

Taylor’s many hits include “Fire and Rain,”"Carolina in My Mind ,”"Steamroller Blues” and “Something in the Way She Moves. ” But he has written few songs with environmental themes, though he describes his “Gaia” as a “kind of tree-hugger anthem.”

The song “Traffic Jam” is another that touches his environmental bent. Consider the last stanza:

“Now I used to think that I was cool / Running around on fossil fuel / Until I saw what I was doing / was driving down the road to ruin.”

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com Amount James Taylor expects his benefit concert to raise.

the benefit

James Taylor opens a summer concert tour Thursday at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater. Tickets are still available.

Taylor will donate most of the show’s proceeds to help preserve the songbird habitat on the lower Eastern Shore. big expectations

Originally published by BY SCOTT HARPER.

(c) 2008 Virginian – Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.