Arnold McCuller, James’s longtime friend and backing vocalist, has decided to hang up his hat and retire from touring life after almost 50 years on the road with James and so many great artists. While the summer 2022 US tour was Arnold’s last full swing with James and his All-Star Band, Arnold will pop in now and then in the future we hope. Coming up this month: Arnold will join James on August 29 and 30 at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway Park in Boston. UK fans may catch a glimpse this fall as well.
By way of tribute, click below to see and hear Arnold’s beautiful voice at work on this recent Canadian performance of “Shower The People”.
What the world desperately needs now is cooperation, global cooperation on a list of pressing issues, from climate change to pandemic response, from humanitarian crises to sharing of the earth’s resources . That one individual, with his own army and his own nuclear arsenal should decide, unilaterally and without provocation, to mount an attack on his neighbor, ignoring another nation’s sovereignty and threatening the peace and progress of the entire world is beyond outrage. That one man’s whim and will should result in such uncalled for chaos and suffering, such a threat to all of our hopes for the future, is something we can simply no longer afford. Did we miss something? Did Ukraine attack or somehow threaten Russia? What possible justification can there be? What other explanation than the obvious: a bully who takes what he wants by force? We must be united in our universal rejection of this travesty. The world must insist that this abomination cannot stand. Civilization itself is at stake. Putin’s war is the categorical and polar opposite of what the world needs now…
~James Taylor
