I had the great pleasure of seeing the immortal James Taylor in concert in Birmingham recently. The once troubled hippie is older, wiser and truly composed and he is, if anything, better than ever.

Birmingham is not my favourite place to travel to, but travel I did. With my trusty TomTom and a helpful co-pilot, I managed to find the centre of Birmingham and park unscathed in the hotel we had selected, close to the NIA and Birmingham's busy canal side, replete with good eateries, bars and people having a good time. I did notice that the good time crowd was somewhat older than I was expecting and the reason for this became apparent as it (the crowd) moved on mass towards the NIA as 8.00pm approached.

Entering the NIA I couldn't help feeling just a little young, at the tender age of 42, as I sat amongst concert goers of distinctly venerable stature. Given the nature of the entertainment, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. JT was my Dad's music and I fell in love as a young boy.

When James Taylor arrived on stage, there was a respectful, enthusiastic show of appreciation from the crowd and after a little 'getting to know you - gotta love you' banter form the man himself, we settled down to business and the fine music began.

JT has covered many artists over the years, including Carole King, the source of perhaps his greatest, best known hit, You've got a friend, which he performed beautifully during the first set. The aforementioned set was littered with little known covers, brilliantly executed but largely unfamiliar and I couldn't help feeling like something was missing. There's a definite jazzy, honky tonk thing going on with Mr. Taylor these days, which is fantastic and fresh, but I was hankering after a bit of the OLD magic.

The second set quenched my thirst for classic Taylor as golden tune after golden tune drifted effortlessly from the stage and I was transported back to 1977. Sundays, as a child, were filled with the sounds my father enjoyed and happily those very sounds have become the foundation of my musical sensibility. OK, dad did like a bit of Status Quo but I have forgiven him this and chosen to block those repetitive riffs from my memory.

I had a lump in my throat as JT sang Fire and Rain, the song about his friend Suzanne Schnerr, who died suddenly many years ago. He has lost none of his magic touch and his finger picking style with melodic hammering and crisp, clear open chords moves me just as much as it did when I was a young boy learning to play.

As the set drew to its usual pre-encore conclusion, I realised he hadn't played Handy Man, a song originally recorded by The Sparks Of Rhythm. Handy Man is the soundtrack to 1977 for me and I figured he's be performing it during one of the encores. Sadly, 2 encores later, the lights were on and Handy Man remained unsung. I was a little disappointed, but the quality of the concert overall, left me buzzing with musical joy.

A foot note: JT finished on a new song and I haven't yet been able to find out what it's called. It was full of classic JT smooth warm chords, hammer ons and familiar guitar phrasing - the JT of old and I was blown away. If anyone can tell me what it is, please write to the magazine.