Add James Taylor to the list of people hooked on travel by cruise ship

[mercedes]

Sometimes an ocean liner really is, as ship historian John Maxtone-Graham would say, the only way to cross. Just ask James Taylor.

For years, the Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and his band have been using airplanes to get to Europe for European tours, and for years they've been having trouble. So this year they tried something new: Getting there by ship.

It was an eye-opener, says Taylor, who sailed from New York to Southampton, England in June with his band and crew on Cunard's Queen Mary 2.

"A big part of a European tour is to get everybody over," Taylor explains, noting that the band's concert equipment alone fills an entire shipping container. "It was an idea I had had for a long time."

Taylor, who played two concerts aboard the vessel in exchange for his passage, is one of the biggest-named headliners ever to play a passenger ship. In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, he says the passage -- and concerts -- proved the perfect way to kick off a European tour.

As Taylor notes, just last year when he went on tour the container holding the band's equipment was waylaid on its way to Europe, forcing the band to reschedule its opening concert. But there were no such trouble this time as the QM2 had ample storage space for his gear.

Taylor and his band also were able to use the ship as a warm-up for the 10-week, 22-concert tour. They rehearsed about six hours a day.

"It was great fun to cross the ocean in that way," he says, speaking from Venice during a break from the schedule. "It was sort of a unique, bygone-era way of traveling."

As is typical for big-name musicians, Taylor was traveling with a large group that included his band, crew and several family members including his wife, Kim. They needed 17 cabins in all.

"My wife loved it. She liked the rough days the best," Taylor says, noting it was a little choppy at the start of the six-day voyage.

Taylor says his twin eight-year sons, Rufus and Henry, also had a blast. "There is a lot to do. There are kids programs, and it's sort of like a microcosm (of the world). They run around and get the lay of the land, and it gives them a kind of freedom at their age that they really liked."

The 61-year-old musician says the voyage brought back childhood memories of a trip to Europe on a Holland America ship. He says he also sailed to Europe on Cunard's QE2 when his older children, Sally and Ben, were little, but he has never seen anything like the 150,000-ton QM2.

"It's the biggest thing I've ever been on," he says.

Taylor was impressed with the ship's 1,150-person Royal Court Theatre where his band played to standing room-only crowds. "It was a very comfortable room," he says. "The sound was excellent, and the soundboard and lighting set-up were really state-of-the-art."

Taylor adds that he now gets why so many people rave about cruising. "It was sort of an exciting controlled adventure," he says.

[sailingrose]

Interesting. Bet he'd do it again. Thanks for the info Carmen.

[GottaCruz]

I certainly wouldn't mind listen to his practice session on board, to say the least. . Wow, now that's entertainment. Thanks for the post, Carmen.

[deb1220]

He was one of my faves as a teen and young adult. Gosh...I would love to see him in person...especially on a ship!

[DebbieandJerry]

Have to agree that I would have loved to have been on that ship. I first saw him in concert with Carly Simon in the mid 60's. I think I might have been 10 or a little older. It was an incredible concert that probably cost a few bucks. I then followed him through high school and college and attended as many James Taylor concerts as I could. My college roommate was head over heals in love with him and his music. We travelled pretty much all over Pa. during those college years to catch him in concert.

When I moved to Tucson, I had to convince my friends to go to concerts to see him. (Most never heard of him or his music) We went to one concert at the UofA in the early 90's that had James Taylor, Jimmy Buffet and Ringo Starr. Then there was the one that he did at our fairgrounds. The place was packed. We were pretty much under the stage.

Fast forward to 2009. He's coming to Tucson in Sept. to play at one of our casinos on the Indian Reservation. Probably holds a few hundred folks, if that many. Jerry's b-day is Sept. Jerry loves James Taylor. So I go online. Tickets start at $125 each. Now I love my husband, but there is no way I am going to spend that much money!

We'll just listen to the records, 8-track, cassettes and CDs that we have. Yep, each and every "album" is replicated in the version mentioned above.