Sheryl Crow Brings ‘Fire & Rain’ to 2016 Kennedy Center Honors [Watch]
Sheryl Crow paid tribute to one of her own biggest musical influences at the 2016 Kennedy Center Honors on Tuesday night (Dec. 27), delivering a sensitive rendition of James Taylor's "Fire & Rain."
The singer-songwriter took the stage with Taylor's band, the Section, dressed in a long, flowing black and gold dress and armed with only an acoustic guitar for the song, which Taylor released in 1970 and took to No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100. It has since become one of his signature songs, and Crow performed it in a higher key, adapting it to her own vocal performance but delivering in an understated performance that called attention to the quality of the song, rather than her voice.
Taylor beamed as Crow delivered his song on the stage of the Kennedy Center, which was re-arranged to resemble the stage of the legendary Troubadour in Los Angeles that was the epicenter of the California singer-songwriter scene in the 1970s.
The music icon joined the Eagles, Al Pacino, gospel and blues legend Mavis Staples and Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich as honorees at the 39th annual Kennedy Center Honors, which taped on Dec. 4 and broadcast on Tuesday night on CBS. Garth Brooks also paid tribute to him with "Shower the People," and South Carolina native Darius Rucker sang a medley of "Sweet Baby James" and "Carolina in My Mind."
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