James Taylor

Northeast's third-ranked heavyweight wrestler, James Taylor, a favorite to win this year's 3A-4A state title with a 23-0 record that includes 18 pins, has been declared athletically ineligible, his father, Scott Taylor, said last night. The elder Taylor said he was informed yesterday by Northeast athletic director Roger Stitt that his son was ineligible because this is his fourth season of wrestling since his sophomore year. The elder Taylor said he has retained an attorney to contest his son's case based on the contention that he was informed by Northeast principal Roy Skiles and Stitt last spring that Taylor still had one season of eligibility left.

Rock and roll doesn't often make itself at home at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall -- particularly not when the Baltimore Symphony is in residence. But after hearing the orchestra perform with legendary singer/songwriter James Taylor Wednesday night, it was hard not to wish that rock were a more regular visitor.Not that the Taylor concert was a rock show in the traditional sense. Yes, there were guitar, bass and drums, but the guitar was acoustic and the other two instruments tastefully understated, with no massive amplifier stacks obscuring the viola section.

It looks like No. 6 Arundel may want the final say.After banging heads with county rival Old Mill all season and finishing a close second best, the Wildcats made a statement last night when they captured the Class 3A-4A East region championship at Meade High School.Sending six wrestlers to the finals and coming away with three region champs, the Wildcats outpointed runner-up Old Mill, 160.5-145, with Severna Park (110.5) taking third in the 18-team field.Arundel qualified eight wrestlers for next weekend's state tournament at Western Maryland College, while fifth-ranked Old Mill had seven finish in the top four yesterday to advance.

Police charged John Henry Harris yesterday in warrants with first-degree murder in the stabbing Sunday night of an elderly Northeast Baltimore man and the attempted murder of the man's wife.Harris, 56, of the 5600 block of Knell Ave. is being sought. He also is charged with stealing the couple's 1997 Toyota Camry with tags EKV 566, said Detective Robert Bowman of the homicide unit.Robert W. Weinhold Jr., a police spokesman, said the Camry was found yesterday evening in the 2000 block of Sinclair Lane by a Northeastern District officer who recognized the missing car and its license tags.

James TaylorHourglass (Columbia 67912)Let's face it -- anybody who opens an album with a line like "I remember Richard Nixon back in '74" is not going for the youth market. Nor does anybody really expect a golden oldie like James Taylor to have much truck with contemporaneity. Even so, you'd think there'd be a little less in the way of baby-boomer complacency on "Hourglass," Taylor's first album of new material since 1991. But despite a guest list that includes Shawn Colvin, Branford Marsalis, Yo-Yo Ma and Sting, the album rarely ventures beyond the tried-and-true, sounding pretty much like any other James Taylor album -- except not as exciting.

James Taylor is the sort of man who pines for the day when you could lay down 35 cents or so for the chance to gawk at deformed people. Only that's not the term he uses for them. To him, they're "human oddities." Sometimes, it's just "freaks."Attention PC Police: You missed one in Baltimore.Taylor is the chronicler -- extoller is probably the more apt description -- of that most puerile of entertainments, the carnival sideshow. Twice a year, he publishes Shocked and Amazed, a periodical that delves into that all but extinct phenomenon, which in an age before television, not to mention good taste, attracted tens of thousands of spectators eager to be rendered slack-jawed or, better yet, nauseated.

Jim Rose's "Freaks Like Me: Real, Raw and Dangerous" and "Freaks, Geeks and Strange Girls: Side Show Banners of the Great American Midway," a collection of essays. Both are new - "instant classic" is written all over them. Rose is the sideshow man for Generation X, his is an autobiography. The second has color plates, beautiful, high gloss reproductions that will knock your eyes out.MA - James Taylor, co-founder and publisher, Dolphin-Moon Press

Warren Sye and Jerry Courville Jr., backed by golfing success at home and abroad, found different ways to achieve the same end at Caves Valley Golf Club yesterday.In reaching the championship match of the 15th annual U.S. Mid-Amateur championship, Sye, from Brampton, Ontario, lost most of a 4-up margin on the back nine before recovering to defeat Bob Kearney, 2 and 1.Courville, 2 down after three, won four straight holes in the middle of the match and stopped James Taylor, 6 and 4.The scheduled 18-hole final match will begin today at 9:30 a.m.Courville, one-time co-holder of the competitive course record, extended a birdie barrage to three successive matches.

James Taylor didn't sing at the original Woodstock. Hard to have imagined "Fire and Rain" or "Sweet Baby James" going over big with the mud set. James Taylor didn't sing at Woodstock last week, either.James sings tonight at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia. I'll be there on the lawn because this is what I do. We must maintain our passionate habits. James Taylor is my habit.I've seen his act before. Eight times. Oct. 25, 1975, was the first time. He sang at the University of Florida's gym, which had all the acoustics and comfort of a rain gutter.

David Wilcox doesn't really think he sounds much like James Taylor.Other people certainly think so. In fact, quite a few listeners feel that his voice has a Taylor-esque twang and that his sound boasts a similar low-key feel. But Wilcox just shrugs at such comparisons.Start with the voice. "Well, I sing about three frets lower than James," says Wilcox, over the phone from his Asheville, N.C., home. "So I'm kind of a baritone. And I don't have the Carolina accent, because I grew up in Ohio."