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James Taylor Dedicates ‘Shed A Little Light’ To Aurora Mass Shooting Victims: Pro-Shot Video

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On February 23, James Taylor continued his tour with longtime friend and collaborator Bonnie Raitt, performing at the Bancorp South Arena in Moline, Illinois. During Taylor’s set with his All-Star Band, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter paid tribute to the victims of a recent mass shooting in the nearby city of Aurora with a mournful rendition of “Shed A Little Light.”

Ahead of the song, Taylor took center stage to address the tragic mass shooting on February 15, which left five warehouse workers dead and wounded five police officers in Aurora, Illinois (not to be confused with a different mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012 that killed 12 and injured 70 in Aurora, Colorado). He noted:

Before we play this next song, I actually want to dedicate it. We’re so assaulted so frequently by terrible news, we have to try to focus on the people of Aurora and think of them tonight, try to hope that they can heal from this, get through this hard time together. We want to dedicate this to the victims, their families and the entire community of Aurora, Illinois.

After those thoughtful words, Taylor and company moved into a gorgeous take on “Shed A Little Light,” a song off his 13th studio album, New Moon Shine. The tune on the 1991 platinum album remains poignant today, opening with the lines, “Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King, and recognize that there are ties between us. / All men and women, living on the earth, / ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, / that we are bound together / with a desire to see the world become / a place which our children can grow free and strong.” Appropriately, the first and final verse ends with a call-to-action, adding “We are bound together by the task that stands before us / and the road that lies ahead, we are bound then we are bound.”

Stream the moving performance of “Shed A Little Light” below: