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James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is a Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter and guitarist born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Carrboro, North Carolina. He currently owns a home in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Taylor's career began in the mid-1960s, but he found his most devoted audience in the early 1970s, singing sensitive and introspective songs. He was part of a wave of singer-songwriters of the time that also included Cat Stevens, Carole King, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Tom Rush, and Jackson Browne, as well as Carly Simon, whom Taylor later married, although it did not last.
His 1976 album Greatest Hits was certified diamond and has sold more than 11 million copies.
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Encyclopedia
James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is a Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter and guitarist born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Carrboro, North Carolina. He currently owns a home in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Taylor's career began in the mid-1960s, but he found his most devoted audience in the early 1970s, singing sensitive and introspective songs. He was part of a wave of singer-songwriters of the time that also included Cat Stevens, Carole King, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Tom Rush, and Jackson Browne, as well as Carly Simon, whom Taylor later married, although it did not last.
His 1976 album Greatest Hits was certified diamond and has sold more than 11 million copies. He has retained a large audience well into the 1990s and early 2000s, when some of his best-selling and most-awarded albums were released.
Biography
Early years
James Taylor was born in Boston, Massachusetts on March 12, 1948, where his father, Isaac M. Taylor, was a resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. His mother, the former Gertrude Woodard, was an aspiring opera singer before their marriage in 1946. James was the second of five children, the others being Alex (born 1947), Kate (born 1949), Livingston (born 1950), and Hugh (born 1952).
In 1951, when James was three years old, the family moved to the countryside of Carrboro, North Carolina when Isaac took a job as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. They built a house in the Morgan Creek area, which was sparsely populated. James would later say, "Chapel Hill, the piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people." Isaac's career prospered, but he was frequently away from home, either on military service at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland or as part of Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica during 1955–1956. Isaac Taylor later rose to become Dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971. The family spent summers on Martha's Vineyard beginning in 1953.
Taylor first learned to play the cello as a child in North Carolina, and switched to the guitar in 1960. His style on that instrument evolved from listening to hymns, carols, and Woody Guthrie, while his technique derived from his bass clef-oriented cello training and from experimenting on his sister Kate's keyboards: "My style was a finger-picking style that was meant to be like a piano, as if my thumb were my left hand, and my first, second, and third fingers were my right hand." He began attending Milton Academy, a prep boarding school in Massachusetts in Fall 1961; summering before then with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York. The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together, and Kortchmar quickly realized that Taylor's singing had a "natural sense of phrasing, every syllable beautifully in time. I knew James had that thing." Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at age 14, and continued to learn the instrument effortlessly. By the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch".
Taylor faltered during his junior year at Milton, not feeling at ease in the high-pressured college prep environment despite having good scholastic performance. The Milton principal would later say, "James was more sensitive and less goal oriented than most students of his day." He returned home to North Carolina to finish out the semester at Chapel Hill High School. There he joined a band his brother Alex had formed called The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs), playing electric guitar; in 1964 they cut a single in Raleigh that featured James's song "Cha Cha Blues" on the B-side. Having lost touch with his former school friends in North Carolina, Taylor returned to Milton for his senior year, but soon descended into depression; his grades collapsed, he slept twenty hours a day, and he felt part of a "life that I [was] unable to lead." In late 1965 he committed himself to the renowned McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, where he was treated with Thorazine and where the organized days began to give him a sense of time and structure. As the Vietnam War built up, Taylor received a psychological rejection from Selective Service System when he appeared before them with two white-suited McLean assistants and was uncommunicative. Taylor earned a high school diploma in 1966 from the hospital's associated Arlington School. He would later view his nine-month stay at McLean as "a lifesaver ... like a pardon or like a reprieve," and both his brother Livingston and sister Kate would later be patients there as well.
Early career
Taylor checked himself out of McLean and, at Kortchmar's urging, moved to New York City to form a band. They recruited former Joel O'Brien, formerly of Kortchmar's old band The King Bees, to play drums, and childhood Taylor friend Zachary Wiesner (son of noted academic Jerome Wiesner) to play bass, and – after Taylor rejected the notion of naming the group after him – called themselves The Flying Machine. They played songs that Taylor had written at and about McLean, such as "Knocking 'Round the Zoo", "Don't Talk Now", and "The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream". In some other songs, Taylor romanticized his life, although he was plagued by self-doubt. By summer 1966 they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village alongside acts such as The Turtles and Lothar and the Hand People.
Taylor associated with a motley collection of people and began using heroin, to Kortchmar's dismay, and wrote the "Paint It, Black"-influenced "Rainy Day Man" to depict his drug experience. In a hasty recording session in late 1966, the group cut a single, Taylor's "Brighten Your Night with My Day" backed with his "Night Owl". Released on Jay Gee Records, a subsidiary of Jubilee Records, it received some radio airplay in the Northeast, but only charted to #102 nationally. The same session had recorded other songs, but Jubilee declined to go forward with an album. After a series of poorly-chosen appearances outside New York, culminating with a three-week stay at a failing nightspot in Freeport, Bahamas for which they were never paid, The Flying Machine broke up. (A UK band with the same name emerged in 1969 with the hit song "Smile a Little Smile for Me". The New York band's recordings were later released in 1971 as James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine.)
Taylor would later say of this New York period, "I learned a lot about music and too much about drugs." Indeed, his drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction during the final Flying Machine period: "I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get a drink." He hung out in Washington Square Park, playing guitar to ward off depression and then passing out, letting runaways and criminals stay at his apartment. Finally out of money and abandoned by his manager, he made a desperate call one night to his father. Isaac Taylor flew to New York and staged a rescue, renting a car and driving all night back to North Carolina with James and his possessions. Taylor spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery; he also required a throat operation to fix vocal chords damaged from singing too harshly.
Taylor decided to try being a solo act and a change of scenery, and funded by a small family inheritance, moved to London in late 1967, living variously in Notting Hill, Belgravia, and Chelsea. He recorded some demos in Soho and, based on Kortchmar's connection of The King Bees having once opened for Peter and Gordon, brought them to Peter Asher, who was A&R head for The Beatles' newly-formed label Apple Records. Asher showed the demos to Paul McCartney, who later said, "I just heard his voice and his guitar and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great." Taylor became the first non-British act signed to Apple. Living chaotically in various places with various women, Taylor wrote additional material, including "Carolina in My Mind", and rehearsed with a new backing band. Taylor recorded the album from July to October 1968 at Trident Studios, at the same time The Beatles were recording The White Album. McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on "Carolina In My Mind", whose lyric holy host of others standing around me made reference to the Beatles, while the title phrase of Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the starting point for Harrison's classic "Something". McCartney and Asher brought in arranger Richard Hewson to add orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual "link" passages in between them; these would receive a mixed reception at best.
During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit, using heroin and methadrine. He underwent visepdone treatment in a British program, returned to New York and was hospitalized there, and then finally committed himself to the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which emphasized cultural and historical factors in trying to treat difficult psychiatric disorders. Meanwhile, Apple released his debut album, James Taylor, in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the U.S. Critical reaction was generally good, including a very positive Jon Landau review in Rolling Stone which said "this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I've inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out." The record's commercial potential suffered from Taylor's inability to promote it due to his hospitalization and it sold poorly; "Carolina In My Mind" was released as a single, but failed to chart in the UK and only made #118 in the U.S.
Apple Corps itself had fallen into chaos, with anarchic business planning and freeloaders taking advantage of it in every direction. Three of the Beatles brought in Allen Klein to clean up the situation in early 1969, who began purging Apple personnel. Asher did not like Klein; he resigned on his own accord and offered to manage Taylor, to which Taylor agreed. Klein wanted to hit Taylor with a $5 million lawsuit for leaving, but McCartney (a Klein antagonist) and then the other Beatles, overruled him on the grounds that artists should not be holding each other to contracts.
In July 1969 Taylor had a six-night stand at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles. On July 20 he performed at the Newport Folk Festival. Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months. But while recovering, he continued to write songs and in October 1969, signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records.
1970s
Once recovered, Taylor signed to Warner Bros. Records and moved to California keeping Asher as his manager and record producer. His second album, Sweet Baby James, was a massive success, buoyed by the single "Fire and Rain," a song about his experience in psychiatric institutions and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr. The success of this single and the album piqued interest in Taylor's first album, James Taylor, and propelled the album and the single, "Carolina In My Mind," back into the charts.
During the time Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. Also, 1971 saw the release of Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, another hit album. He won a Grammy Award for his version of his friend Carole King's "You've Got a Friend".
In 1972, Taylor returned with One Man Dog and married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon on November 3, 1972. His next album, 1974's Walking Man, was a disappointment but the following one, Gorilla, was a success partially because of a successful single cover version of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)." This was followed by In the Pocket in 1976 and then a greatest hits album that included some re-recordings of Apple Records-era material. It became a huge hit and remains Taylor's best selling album. It was certified diamond, and to date has sold over 11 million copies.
Taylor signed with Columbia Records and released JT in 1977 winning another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version of "Handy Man."
After collaborating with Art Garfunkel and briefly working on Broadway, Taylor took a two-year break, reappearing in 1979 with the cover-studded album Flag, featuring a Top 40 version of Gerry Goffin and Carole King's "Up on the Roof." Taylor also performed at the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden and appeared on the album and the film from the concert.
1980s and 1990s
In 1981, James Taylor released the album Dad Loves His Work.
He was quoted in various interviews that he was thinking of retiring after fulfilling his last contractual obligation, the Rock in Rio in 1985. However, he was surprised by the reception of the audience on Saturday, January 12 (there were 250,000 people, the biggest attendance of the 10-day festival), when he performed right before George Benson. Two days later, they were scheduled to perform in the same order, but because Taylor's extended performance had caused a delay to Benson's on Saturday, Benson proposed that they switch the order. Taylor ended up the finale in this second performance. Buoyed by the audience's reception, he decided to take back his life and his career. The song "Only a Dream in Rio" was written in tribute to that night, with verses like "I was there that very day and my heart came back alive." The album, That's Why I'm Here, from which that song came, started a series of studio recordings that, while spaced further apart than his previous records, showed a more consistent level of quality and fewer covers.
In 1988, he released Never Die Young. He began touring regularly, especially on the summer amphitheater circuit. His later concerts feature songs from throughout his career and are marked by the musicianship of his band and backup singers. The 1993 two-disc (LIVE) album captures this well, with a highlight being Arnold McCuller's descants in the codas of "Shower the People" and "I Will Follow." In 1995, Taylor performed the role of Lord in Randy Newman's Faust.
Taylor's two albums of original material from the 1990s were notably successful. His thirteenth album, New Moon Shine, went platinum in 1991 and he won the Grammy for Best Pop Album in 1998 for Hourglass. The latter had much of its focus on Taylor's troubled past and family. "Jump Up Behind Me" paid tribute to his father's rescue of him after The Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill. "Enough To Be On Your Way" was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade.
2000s
On February 18, 2001 at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston, Taylor wed for the third time, marrying Caroline ("Kim") Smedvig, the director of public relations and marketing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Part of their relationship was worked into the album October Road, on the song "On the 4th of July." The couple reside in the town of Washington, Massachusetts with their twin boys, Rufus and Henry, born in April 2001 to a surrogate mother via in vitro fertilization.
Flanked by two greatest hit releases, October Road appeared in 2002 to a receptive audience. It featured a number of quiet instrumental accompaniments and passages. The album appeared in two versions, a single-disc version and a "limited edition" two-disc version which contained three extra songs including a duet with Mark Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia," which also appeared on Knopfler's Sailing to Philadelphia album. Also in 2002, Taylor teamed with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss in singing "The Boxer" at the Kennedy Center Honors Tribute to Paul Simon. They later recorded the Louvin Brothers duet, "How's the World Treating You?" In 2004, after he chose not to renew his record contract with Columbia/Sony, he released James Taylor: A Christmas Album with distribution through Hallmark Cards.
Always visibly active in environmental and liberal causes, in October 2004 Taylor joined the "Vote for Change" tour playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org with the goal of mobilizing people to vote for John Kerry and against George W. Bush in that year's Presidential campaign. Taylor's appearances were joint performances with the Dixie Chicks.
Taylor performed the US National Anthem at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston on October 24, 2004.
In December 2004, Taylor appeared as himself in an episode of The West Wing entitled "A Change Is Gonna Come." He sang Sam Cooke's classic "A Change Is Gonna Come" at an event honoring an artist played by Taylor's wife Caroline.
He appeared on CMT's Crossroads alongside the Dixie Chicks. In early 2006, Musicares honored Taylor with performances of his songs by an array of notable musicians. Before a performance by the Dixie Chicks, lead singer Natalie Maines acknowledged that he had always been one of their musical heroes, and had for them lived up to their once-imagined reputation of him. They performed his song, "Shower the People", with a surprise appearance by Arnold McCuller, who has sung backing vocals for Taylor on many occasions.
In the fall of 2006, Taylor released a repackaged and slightly different version of his Hallmark Christmas album, now entitled James Taylor at Christmas, and distributed by Columbia/Sony.
In 2006, Taylor performed Randy Newman's song "Our Town" for the Disney animated film Cars. The song was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for the best Original Song.
On January 1, 2007, Taylor headlined the inaugural concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York, honoring newly sworn in Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.
Taylor's next album, One Man Band was released on CD and DVD in November 2007 on Starbucks' Hear Music Label, where he joined with Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell.
On November 28–30, Taylor, accompanied by his original band and Carole King, headlined a series of six shows at The Troubadour. The appearances marked the 50th anniversary of the venue, where Taylor, King and many others, such as Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, and Elton John, began their music careers. Proceeds from the concert went to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council, MusiCares, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, a member of America's Second Harvest — The Nation's Food Bank Network. Parts of the performance shown on CBS Sunday Morning in the December 23 2007, broadcast showed Taylor alluding to his early drug problems by saying, "I played here a number of times in the 70s, allegedly..." Taylor has used versions of this joke on other occasions, and it appears as part of his One Man Band DVD and tour performances.
In December 2007 James Taylor at Christmas was nominated for a Grammy Award. In January 2008 Taylor recorded approximately 20 songs by others for a new album with a band including Luis Conte, Michael Landau, Lou Marini, Arnold McCuller, Jimmy Johnson, David Lasley, Walt Fowler, Andrea Zonn, Kate Markowitz, Steve Gadd and Larry Goldings. The resulting live-in-studio album, named Covers, was released in September 2008. Meanwhile, in summer 2008, Taylor and this band toured 34 North American cities with a tour entitled James Taylor and His Band of Legends.
During October 19-21, 2008, Taylor performed a series of free concerts in five North Carolina cities in support of Barack Obama's presidential bid.
On Sunday, January 18, 2009, he performed at the We Are One:The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, singing "Shower the People" with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland.
Musicians in the family
Taylor's four siblings—Alex, Livingston, Hugh, and Kate—have also been musicians with recorded albums. Livingston is still an active musician; Kate was active in the 1970s but did not record another album until 2003; Hugh operates a bed-and-breakfast with his wife, The Outermost Inn in Aquinnah on Martha's Vineyard; and Alex died in 1993. Taylor's children with Carly Simon—Ben and Sally—have also embarked on musical careers. On September 11th 2008, Billboard said that Taylor is writing for a new album, quite possibly his last.
James Taylor collaborators
The following is a list of musicians who have played with Taylor.
- Jeff Babko: keyboard/organ
- Phillip Ballou: vocals
- Dave Bargeron: trombone
- Greg Bissonette: drums
- Michael Brecker: saxophone
- Randy Brecker: trumpet, vocals
- Rosemary Butler: vocals
- Keith Carlock: drums
- Clifford Carter: keyboards
- Valerie Carter: vocals
- Luis Conte: percussion
- David Crosby: backing vocals
- Craig Doerge: keyboards
- Jerry Douglas: dobro
- Dan Dugmore: guitar
- Steve Edney: vocals
- Walt Fowler: horns, keyboards
- Steve Gadd: drums
- Art Garfunkel: vocals
- Andrew Gold: harmonium, vocals
- Larry Goldings: piano, keyboards
- Chris "Sticks" Rubow: drums
- Don Grolnick: piano
- John Guiliton: keyboards
- Abigale "Gail" Haness: vocals
- George Harrison: vocals
- Buzz Heat: guitar
- Don Henley: backing vocals
- John Jarvis: keyboards
- Jimmy Johnson: bass
- Steve Jordan: drums
- Carole King: piano, keyboards, vocals
- Ed Kolakowski: keyboards
- Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar: electric guitar
- Russell Kunkel: drums
- Michael Landau: guitar
- Charles Larkey: bass
- David Lasley: vocals
- Gail Levant: harp
- Tony Levin: bass
- Yo-Yo Ma: cello
- Bob Mann: guitar
- Lou Marini: reeds, horns
- Rick Marotta: drums
- Kate Markowitz: vocals
- Harvey Mason: drums
- Linda McCartney: vocals
- Paul McCartney: bass, vocals
- Hugh McCracken: harmonica, guitar
- Arnold McCuller: vocals
- Clarence McDonald: piano, keyboards
- Edgar Meyer: double bass
- Joni Mitchell: backing vocals
- Andy Muson: bass
- Milton Nascimento: Brazilian singer, songwriter, guitarist
- Graham Nash: backing vocals
- Joel Bishop O'Brien: drums
- Mark O'Connor: fiddle
- Billy Payne: keyboards
- Herb Pedersen: banjo
- John Pizzarelli: guitar
- Russ Powell: bass
- David Sanborn: saxophone
- Rick Schlosser: drums
- Ralph Schuckett: keyboards
- Michael B. Siegel: bass
- Carly Simon: vocals
- Leland Sklar: bass
- David Spinozza: guitar
- J. D. Souther: guitar, vocals
- Carlos Vega: drums
- Waddy Wachtel: guitar
- Joe Walsh: guitar
- Willie Weeks: bass
- Owen Young: cello
- Zachary Wiesner: bass
- Andrea Zonn: violin, vocals
- Elio E Le Storie Tese vocals
Awards and recognition
- 1971 — Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "You've Got a Friend"
- 1977 — Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Handy Man"
- 1998 — Best Pop Album, Hourglass
- 2001 — Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight"
- 2003 — Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, "How's the World Treating You" with Alison Krauss
- 2006 — Grammy Award-sponsored MusiCares Person of the Year. At a black tie ceremony held in Los Angeles, musicians from several eras paid tribute to Taylor by performing his songs, often prefacing them with remarks on his influence on their decisions to become musicians. These artists included Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Taj Mahal, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Sheryl Crow, India.Arie, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and Keith Urban. Paul Simon performed as well, although he was not included in the televised program; Taylor's brother Livingston appeared on stage as a "backup singer" for the finale, along with Taylor's twin boys, Rufus and Henry.
Other recognition
Discography
Other appearances
- He provided a guest voice to The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer" where he played some of his songs to Homer, Buzz Aldrin, and Race Banyon when they were in space. He also appeared later on in the series when the family puts together a jigsaw puzzle. His face was the missing final piece.
- Performed "Second Star to the Right" on Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films in 1988 as one of Various Artists.
- Taylor performed the US National Anthem at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston on October 25, 2007. Taylor performed the US National Anthem at Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals in Boston on June 5, 2008.
- He appeared on the Sesame Street video compilation Silly Songs, and the album In Harmony: A Sesame Street Record, performing the song "Jellyman Kelly".
- Has appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live six times as a musical guest: in 1976 performing "Shower the People," "Roadrunner" (with David Sanborn), and "Sweet Baby James" (host: Lily Tomlin); in 1979 performing "Johnnie Comes Back," "Up on the Roof," and "Millworker" (host: Michael Palin); in 1980 performing with Paul Simon "Cathy's Clown / Take Me to the Mardi Gras" (host: Paul Simon); in 1988 performing "Never Die Young," "Sweet Potato Pie," and "Lonesome Road" (host: Robin Williams); in 1991 performing "Stop Thinkin' About That," "Shed A Little Light," and "Sweet Baby James" (Host: Steve Martin); and in 1993 performing "Memphis," "Slap Leather," and "Secret of Life" (host: Rosie O'Donnell).
- provided background vocals for "Back In The High Life Again" by Steve Winwood in 1986.
- provided background vocals for Perfect Love by Marc Cohn.
- Taylor has appeared on The West Wing.
- He appeared on the The Johnny Cash Show (TV series), singing Sweet Baby James, Fire and Rain, and Country Road, on 17 February 1971.
- He did vocals for the song First Me, Second Me by the Italian band Elio E Le Storie Tese
- Along with Linda Ronstadt, he did backup vocals for two hit singles on Neil Young's Harvest (album): Old Man and Heart of Gold.
Further reading
- White, Timothy. James Taylor: Long Ago and Far Away, Omnibus Press, 2002, ISBN 0-7119-9193-6.
- Risberg, Joel. The James Taylor Encyclopedia, GeekTV Press, 2005, ISBN 1-4116-3477-2.
External links
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