O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : James Taylor Has Friends If Not Fire

Once he was the Walking Man. Now you might peg James Taylor by one of the more recent song titles on his set list Saturday night at Irvine Meadows: “The Frozen Man.”

But not frozen in bearing. In his low-key way, the smiling, ever-gracious Taylor had no problem establishing a warm connection with his fans. And certainly not frozen out of the marketplace. At 46, this epitome of the early ‘70s introspective singer-songwriter movement remains a hot concert draw. At Irvine, the 15,000-capacity house was virtually packed.

What’s frozen, and has been since early in his career, is Taylor’s artistic development. Ideally, a performer’s path can take new directions even as he or she moves through middle age. Taylor doesn’t seem interested in any such shifts.

His fans evidently don’t mind. Taylor’s voice remains as pleasing as ever, with its gentle, reedy appeal and comfortable hangdog quality. He plays most of the old favorites and usually renders them much as he originally recorded them. His backing band is a nine-piece ensemble with the skills to bring recording studio precision to the concert stage.

This conservative approach has its practical advantages if you consider the commercial fate of some of the other noted singer-songwriters of Taylor’s generation.

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Joni Mitchell took a drastic leap into the avant-garde during the late ‘70s and her mass following dwindled, never to return. Jackson Browne became political and stumbled over his own soapbox. Cat Stevens found religion. So did Van Morrison, who, though he didn’t feel compelled to sacrifice his art on the altar of faith, alienated a whole bunch of “Moondance” and “Tupelo Honey” fans as he journeyed further and further into the mystic.

Neil Young turned down his big post-”Harvest” chance to be a sensitive troubadour with a huge following because he was too fond of making a big, noisy mess. Bob Dylan became known for willfully unpredictable performances that could make classic songs unrecognizable, and his draw fell off as a result.

Taylor has gone on as always, putting out a craftsmanlike new album every three or four years over the past decade and a half. “The Frozen Man” was drawn from his last studio release, “New Moon Shine” (1991). It is a wry, fanciful tale about a 19th-Century mariner who gets frozen in seawater when his ship goes down in the Arctic, only to be thawed out and revived more than 100 years later. Metaphorically, it fits in with the essential theme of Taylor’s career--the search for warmth following chilling exposure to bad emotional weather.

Obviously, a lot of people can still relate to that theme, and many appreciate the comforting tone Taylor takes in conveying it. There’s nothing wrong with offering comfort, but it would have been better if Taylor could also have mustered contrasting moments that were genuinely, disturbingly dramatic, or more rough-hewn and unruly.

At Irvine Meadows, he played a solid opening hour that began with nods to gospel and R&B; influences in his own “Lo and Behold” and a laid-back but reasonably funky take on Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land.” The headlong Berry chug-a-lug riffing was replaced by the same easy-rolling New Orleans slip-and-slide groove that Little Feat used for “Dixie Chicken.”

“Your Smiling Face,” one of Taylor’s brightest and most affirmative songs, got the biggest ovation, but his most striking performance was “Country Road.” Rather than play it just like the record, Taylor came up with a well-wrought instrumental intro in which his rippling acoustic guitar danced a while with Jimmy Johnson’s trebly bass. The song eventually shifted from melancholy to hopefulness with soul-style vocal vamps and an elegant but sinewy band accompaniment that avoided the slickness that would creep in from time to time during the show.

Taylor finished his first set nicely with a simple, just-so rendition of the lullaby “Sweet Baby James,” then took a 25-minute intermission.

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During the second half, Taylor tried to find a higher gear, but the show meandered uneventfully. A second Chuck Berry song, “Memphis,” had all the fire and humor taken out of it in a doleful, slow-moving arrangement. A neutered version of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” lacked urgency and propulsion, while Taylor tinkered with the lyrics in a way that turned it from a desperate bid to win a romantic cause into something entirely more carefree and easygoing. Holly’s anguished “My love is bigger than a Cadillac/I try to show it but you drive me back” became the lovey-dovey “I drive you and you drive me back.” A run through Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” lacked the requisite wildness.

As soon as Taylor finished “You’ve Got a Friend,” significant numbers in the house turned into walking men and women, even though there was still a good deal of music yet to come. The last half hour of the concert was marked by an exodus to the parking lot reminiscent of Dodger Stadium after the seventh inning. Not even “Fire and Rain” could halt the defections. Maybe the fans wouldn’t be so eager to get a head start if they knew Taylor had some fresh twists and surprises in mind.

Taylor performs Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, 8:15 p.m. $24.50 to $40, (818) 980-9421.