James Taylor, the #46 Artist of the Rock Era Part One

"These are songs that dance on your soul. His music erases pain; it creates emotional bonds to reality"

"An excellent artist."

"His music is universal. What an amazing voice."

"This man is a great musical storyteller."

"In his voice  I hear  a kind , sharing and respectful sensibilities/messages."

"He's a master!"

"He has what has to be one of the smoothest voices of all-time."

"His mellow sound was a healing balm for the nation."

"One of the best songwriters ever."

"His music is so innocent and simple and makes me feel so many emotions."

"Brilliant guitarist and songs from the soul."

"What a legend."

"One of the all-time greats!"








He is the embodiment of the singer-songwriter, though he has traveled a long and difficult road along the way.

James Taylor was born March 12, 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts.  When James was three, the family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina when his father, Isaac, accepted a job as assistant professor at the University of North Carolina.

Taylor played the cello early in his childhood, but switched to guitar in 1960.  James enrolled in Milton Academy, a preparatory school in Massachusetts, in 1961.  The family enjoyed summer vacations on Martha's Vineyard, where James met guitarist and songwriter Danny Kortchmar.  Taylor wrote his first song at age 14, and by the summer of 1963, James and Kortchmar played coffeehouses around the Vineyard, promoting themselves as Jamie & Kootch.  

Taylor wasn't comfortable at Milton and finished his junior year at Chapel Hill High School.  During this time, he played electric guitar with a group that his brother Alex had formed called the Corsairs.  But since James was no longer close to his former schoolmates, he returned to Milton for his senior year.

Taylor began applying to colleges but was about to enter a critical stage of his life.  He slept 20 hours a day, his grades went downhill and James fell into depression.  To his credit, James committed himself to McLean Hospital in 1965 and earned his diploma the next year from the hospital's associated Arlington School.  

Taylor (left, above) decided on Elon University, but left after one semester to form a band with Kortchmar that they named the Flying Machine.  Soon, the group played at the Night Owl Cafe in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, New York.  They recorded one of James' songs, "Brighten Your Night With My Day", which received airplay in the Northeast but did not spread nationally.  Taylor became addicted to heroin during this time and shortly afterwards, the group broke up.

Taylor played guitar in Washington Square Park, but when he ran out of money, James called his father Isaac, who flew to New York City and rescued him, renting a car and driving James back to North Carolina.  James received treatment for six months and made a temporary recovery.

Spending part of a family inheritance, James (above, right with Peter Asher) moved to London in 1967 to begin a solo career.  After recording some demos in Soho, old friend Kortchmar set up a meeting with Peter Asher, formerly part of the duo Peter & Gordon and A&R head of the recently formed Beatles label Apple Records.  Paul McCartney and George Harrison both loved the tape and after hearing him perform live, signed Taylor to a recording contract.  Asher later signed on to be James' manager.

In 1968, Taylor (above on right with, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr) recorded his debut album at Trident Studios at the time the Beatles were recording The White Album.   

But James reverted to using heroin and methedrine again.  He underwent treatment in England before returning to a New York hospital and finally committing himself again to the Austin Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  

The album received good reviews, but did not sell well because James was unable to promote it due to his condition.  Taylor headlined a six-night stay at the famous nightclub The Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1969 and performed at the Newport Folk Festival.  Soon after, however, James broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard.  While recovering, he continued to write songs and decided to switch to Warner Brothers Records.

James moved to California and recorded his second album there.  In 1970, he released the album Sweet Baby James, which contained many of the songs he had written while at Riggs.  The single "Fire And Rain" is his personal story of trying to break his drug addiction and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr.  Lacking a full-time bassist, Taylor turned to session musician Bobby West for help with this song.  West played an upright bowed bass, which is sometimes mistaken for a viola or cello.  It was a huge hit, rising to #2 in Canada and #5 in the United States.  

Sweet Baby James has now sold over three million copies worldwide.   Taylor wrote this song in 1968 in London while longing to return to North Carolina.  The line "holy host of others standing around me" in "Carolina In My Mind" refers to the Beatles, as McCartney (bass and vocals) and Harrison (vocals) helped him on the song.  James re-released the single "Carolina In My Mind", which he had first issued from his debut album.  It still only peaked at #67, highly underrated considering its popularity today.

 

"Suite for 20G" is a combination of three songs that Taylor was working on but hadn't yet completed.  As Warner Brothers was pressuring him to complete the album, Asher had James string together the three songs in a "suite" in order to get the $20,000 that the label promised him; hence the title of the song!  Peter said, "We were completely broke and desperately needed the money."

"Country Road" refers to Somerset Street in Belmont, Massachusetts, a road lined by trees that ran adjacent to the land owned by McLean Hospital, where Taylor first committed himself to receive treatment for depression in 1965.

 

Here we have one of the most requested Taylor song at concerts.  "Steamroller" pokes fun at white people trying to sing Blues songs and at the overtly sexual metaphors in the songs.  

Another favorite of Taylor fans is the title song.

Taylor appeared in the movie Two-Lane BlackTop, and in 1971, performed in a Vancouver, Canada benefit concert to raise money for Greenpeace's protests of nuclear weapons tests by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.  On March 1, 1971, James appeared in a Time magazine cover story.

 

Taylor released the album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon.  Written by his friend Carole King, who plays piano on the song, James recorded this song first with Carole recording it for her monumental album Tapestry just a few days later.  "You've Got A Friend" went to #1 in the U.S., #2 in Canada and #4 in the U.K.  

"You've Got A Friend" earned a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, while King won Song of the Year.

 

The album soared to #2 and has sold over 2.5 million copies in the U.S. alone.  "Long Ago And Far Away", about how things don't always go as planned and dreams are often not matched by reality,  gave James a #4 Adult hit.  King played piano on this one as well and listen for Joni Mitchell on backing vocals.

 

JT wrote "You Can Close Your Eyes" for his girlfriend Joni while the two were in New Mexico for the filming of James' acting debut in Two-Lane Blacktop in 1968. 

"Machine Gun Kelly" was a gangster from Memphis, Tennessee.  Kortchmar wrote this one for James.

 

Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon is a fictionalized version of Taylor's band, featuring the characters Stoney Lee Blue Borne (bassist Leland Sklar), Oil Slick (drummer Russ Kunkel) and Kootcheroo (Kortchmar).  Taylor also name-dropped the people (Jimmy, Jimmy-John and Nick and Laurie/The No Jets Construction) who helped him build the home on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, where he lived with Carly Simon for many years.  Here is the title song.

 

In 1972, Taylor released the album One Man Dog, which featured King, Linda Ronstadt and Carly Simon.   The single "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" climbed to #3 on the Adult chart and #14 overall.  Michael Brecker plays the wonderful sax solo at the end. 

 

Taylor released the album Walking Man, with Paul and Linda McCartney helping out.  With no hits, the album failed to go Gold.  But the title song is a very worthy track.

James and Carly recorded their remake of the Inez and Charlie Foxx hit "Mockingbird" in 1974, a #3 hit in Canada that reached #5 in the U.S.  Brecker again provides the sax solo with keyboards from Dr. John and Robbie Robertson of the Band on rhythm guitar.

Enjoy Part Two of this remarkable story!