O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Sweet, Surprising James

First, he dropped to one knee in an impersonation of Elvis bending to drink from a cup of water. Then, he strutted a few paces before launching into a full 360-degree jump with a pinpoint landing. He even managed a few Chuck Berry-like squats with guitar in hand.

James Taylor may be 44 years old but, as he proved at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Wednesday night (and no doubt will prove again during a five-show run that starts Tuesday at the Universal Amphitheatre), he’s still full of surprises.

The biggest surprise, of course, is that Taylor--who is linked indelibly to the soft-rock singer-songwriter movement of the ‘70s--still can fill an arena at all. His shows certainly aren’t flashy (unless you consider a little lighting and dry ice high-tech), his fan-base is largely middle-aged, and the man . . . well, he wears khakis and work boots in concert.

Still, he not only packs them in year after year, he managed to hold onto most of his audience until the very last notes of Wednesday’s two-hour-plus concert. Considering that the standard rap against this singer long has been that his songs sound hypnotically similar, this crowd’s pleas for more, after 23 songs and three encores, must have been music to his ears.

(Incidentally, Taylor is aware of the criticism. Introducing “The Frozen Man” from his latest album, “New Moon Shine,” he remarked dryly: “Here’s another new song. It sounds just like all the old songs but, technically, it’s a new song.”)

Taylor, his band of five musicians and four backup singers deserved every one of the nearly half-dozen standing ovations they received. In two sets, with intermission, such classic Taylor hits as “Sweet Baby James,” “Carolina in My Mind” and “Fire and Rain” were served up alongside selections from “New Moon Shine” and a wide range of material that even included a Scottish folk song done as an encore.

Except for a brief sequence at the outset, Taylor managed to shake up the sameness of his more patented ballads and soft-rockers by interspersing them with gospel-tinged numbers (“Shed a Little Light”), Cajun and Calypso flavorings (“(I’ve Got to) Stop Thinkin’ ‘Bout That,” Sam Cooke’s “Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha”), rockabilly (“Slap Leather”) and blues (“Steamroller”).

There were exquisite, lilting harmonies from the vocal quartet (Valerie Carter, Kate Markowitz, David Lasley and Arnold McCuller) during “That’s Why I’m Here” and numerous others. And the band, though relegated to near-Muzak on some of Taylor’s more obvious radio-ready hits, got to show its chops with the chunky, percussive “First of May” and the crystalline “The Frozen Man.”

A warm and highly personable performer (how many other pop stars can you name who begin all their sentences with “Um”?), Taylor also displayed a rapier-like wit and a penchant for sociopolitical satire. In “Slap Leather,” he sang:

Get all worked up so we can go to war .

We find something worth killing for .

Tie a yellow ribbon around your eyes .

Big McFalafel and a side of fries.

This tour, he said Wednesday, is in support of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which he called “a sort of law firm for the environment.”

Juxtapose that sort of thing with such songs as “Handy Man” and “How Sweet It Is,” as Taylor did effortlessly and convincingly, and this hardly seems a one-dimensional kind of guy.