James Taylor: Gorilla Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

James Taylor: Gorilla Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 17, 2026

Note: August's batch of Quadio releases from Rhino offers four artists who haven't had previous Quadio releases, at least under their own name, with Bread's David Gates being that particular outlier, along with newcomers Herbie Mann, James Taylor and James Gang.

A lot of fans tend to think of albums like Sweet Baby James and early seventies singles like You've Got a Friend and/or Fire and Rain when they think about what might be called the "classic" era of James Taylor, but for yours truly it's the one - two punch of 1974's Walking Man and 1975's Gorilla that really set the bar for Taylor's seventies output. Both albums are filled to the brim with ingratiating melodies, insightful (and at times playful) lyrics, and Taylor's always evocative guitar work and plaintive vocals. Gorilla continued the at least slightly more electric sound Taylor had begun to exploit in Walking Man, and it includes his enjoyable (minor) hit cover version of How Sweet It Is to be Loved By You in a duet with then wife Carly Simon (not to mention some fantastic piano work by the inimitable Dr. John).

The album's track list can be seen in the screenshots of the disc menu I've uploaded to accompany this review. More information about navigating the menu can be found in the video section, below.

James Taylor: Gorilla Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is another Quadio release with a static menu. As usual, the track listing changes color depending on whether you scroll, chapter skip (which amounts to next track) or actually individually select tracks, and I've offered some examples of the different changes on tap. In what has become an almost maddeningly frustrating aspect to these Quadio releases, this particular one, unlike some of its August "siblings", may not seem like you can toggle between codecs without navigating to the bottom of the menu and selecting one, but in fact that is available by pressing the Audio button on your remote (you can of course also change codecs by using the menu itself). Commendably in this case the song does not start over. I've long ago given up hoping anyone at WMG and/or Rhino pays attention to these complaints, but I know from many reader emails through the years how annoying others feel about this, especially given the inconsistency of how these Quadio discs have been authored.

James Taylor: Gorilla Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

James Taylor: Gorilla features DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 and DTS-HD Master 2.0 options. This is another really ingratiating quad mix, with noticeable engagement of all four channels from the get go with the somewhat quiet opening of Mexico, which then really kicks in when the full band and backup vocalists join the fray. In that regard, while not an overly problematic issue, I found James' lead vocals to be just very slightly buried in the quad mix at times, with sections of Mexico being a prime example. Other tunes have his evocative voice very well prioritized and placed forward in the mix. There's some appealing discrete channelization at times, as in the bell tone in Music or the tambourine and rim shots on How Sweet It Is to be Loved By You.

James Taylor: Gorilla Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As usual with the Quadio releases, there are no on disc supplements. An insert leaflet reproduces the album's lyrics and credits (get out your magnifying glasses) and also includes Quadio's standard photos of master tape boxes.

James Taylor: Gorilla Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Unfortunately Walking Man was never released in a quadraphonic edition, but I'd like to suggest that maybe Rhino would consider a box set of Taylor's seventies output with lossless audio a la their Joni Mitchell: The Asylum Albums collection from a few years ago, as I for one would be grateful to revisit the albums "even" in stereo. There's a lot of lovely music on this album, and the four channel mix is invitingly immersive. Highly recommended.