James Taylor

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This article deals with James Taylor, the singer-songwriter and guitarist. For other people of the same name, see James Taylor (disambiguation).

James Taylor

Background information
Birth name James Vernon Taylor
Born March 12, 1949 (age 58)
Belmont, Massachusetts, USA
Origin Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Genre(s) Folk rock, Soft rock, R&B
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, Guitarist
Instrument(s) Vocals, Guitar
Years active 1968 - Present
Label(s) Apple (1968–1969)
Warner Bros. (1970–1976)
Columbia (1977–2004)
Website JamesTaylor.com

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, born in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Taylor's career began in the mid-1960s, but he found his audience in the early 1970s, singing sensitive and gentle acoustic songs. He was part of a wave of singer-songwriters of the time that also included Tom Rush, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, John Denver, Elton John, Jackson Browne as well as Carly Simon, whom Taylor later married.

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 2000s, when some of his best-selling and most-awarded albums were released.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Taylor grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his father, Dr. Isaac M. Taylor, was the dean of the University of North Carolina Medical School from 1964 to 1971. His family summered on Martha's Vineyard.

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; Alex died in 1993.) Taylor's children with Carly Simon, named Ben and Sally, have also embarked on musical careers. His father remarried later and had three more children: Preston, Theo, and Julia.

[edit] Early career

Taylor first learned to play the cello as a child in Chapel Hill, and switched to the guitar in 1960. His style on that instrument evolved from listening to hymns, carols, and Woody Guthrie. He attended Milton Academy, a prep school in Massachusetts, and summered with his family in Martha's Vineyard, where he met Danny Kortchmar. The two began playing folk music together. After dropping out of school, he formed a band with his brother, Alex. Later, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital for depression. He earned a high school diploma while in the hospital, and then left and formed a band called the Flying Machine with Kortchmar and Joel O'Brien. The band was signed to Rainy Day Records and released one single, "Brighten Your Night with My Day" (B-side: "Night Owl"). The record was not a success.

While living in New York City, Taylor became addicted to heroin. One night, after receiving a desperate phone call, his father drove to New York and "rescued" him. Taylor later wrote a song called "Jump Up Behind Me" that paid tribute to his father's help during a time of desperate need. The song also reflects on Taylor's memories of the long drive from New York back to his home in Chapel Hill.

In 1968, Taylor moved to London. He was signed to Apple Records after sending a demo tape to Peter Asher (of Peter & Gordon) and released his debut album, James Taylor. Despite the Beatles connection, and the presence of Paul McCartney and George Harrison on one track, the album did not sell very well, and Taylor's addiction worsened. Moving back to the United States, Taylor checked into a hospital to treat his drug problem. By 1969 he was well enough to perform live, and had a six-night stand at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles. On July 20, 1969 he performed at the Newport Folk Festival. Shortly thereafter he broke both hands in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months.

[edit] 1970s success

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 an asylum 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, bringing the album and the single, "Carolina In My Mind", back into the charts.

Taylor worked with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys on a film, Two-Lane Blacktop, but this was unsuccessful at the time. 1971 saw the release of Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, another hit album. He won a Grammy Award for his version of 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. 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.

Taylor's wife, Carly Simon, was unhappy with his extended absences due to touring. After an ultimatum from her that he spend more time with their children, Ben and Sally, Taylor and Simon divorced in 1983.

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". The jazzy song "Traffic Jam" from the album has since become a favorite theme of rush-hour radio traffic reports.

After collaborating with Art Garfunkel and briefly working on Broadway, Taylor took a two-year break, reappearing in 1979 with another successful album, Flag, that featured a Top 40 cover 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 film from the concert.

[edit] 1980s and 1990s

In the early 1980s Taylor's career was again beset by drug problems, plus his divorce from Simon and the pressures of the music business. 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, since Taylor's extended performance had caused a huge delay to Benson's back on Saturday, Benson proposed that they switch the order. Taylor ended up the headliner in this second performance. Buoyed by the audience's reception, he decided to take back his life and his career. (16 years later, on January 12, 2001, he played the very same site, at the opening night of the third Rock in Rio, whose organizer, Roberto Medina, described Taylor to the Brazilian press then as "his good luck charm").

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 and was especially popular on the American amphitheatre oldies circuit. His concerts, which continue to this day, 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".

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.

[edit] 2000s

In 2001 Taylor wed for the third time, marrying Caroline ("Kim") Smedvig, a Smith College graduate who is 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 has twin boys, Rufus and Henry, born in 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 Knopfer'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 his Columbia/Sony record contract was not renewed, he released James Taylor: A Christmas Album with distribution through Hallmark Cards.

Always visibly active in environmental and progressive 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.

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. Taylor's rendition was then released over the Internet.

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.

[edit] Awards and recognition

[edit] Grammy Awards

[edit] Other recognition

  • Honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, 1995
  • Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2000
  • Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2000
  • The Chapel Hill Museum in Chapel Hill North Carolina opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Taylor on April 26, 2003. At the same occasion the highway bridge over Morgan Creek, near the site of the Taylor family home and mentioned in Taylor's song "Copperline", was dedicated to Taylor.
  • George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement UCLA Spring Sing, in 2004.[1]
  • Ranked 84th in Rolling Stone's list of "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004.[2]

[edit] Discography

[edit] Videography

  • James Taylor: In Concert (1982) — CBS/FOX laser disc of a 1979 concert in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
  • Squibnocket (1993) — Tour rehearsals on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
  • Live at the Beacon Theatre (1998) — Recording of a show in New York City
  • Pull Over (2002) — Recording of a 2001 show in Chicago, Illinois
  • James Taylor: A MusiCares Person Of The Year Tribute (2006) — DVD of Taylor and celebrity guests released by Rhino Entertainment

[edit] Trivia

  • He provided a guest voice to The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer" where he played some of his songs to Homer, Buzz Aldrin, and another astronaut when they were in space.
  • In The Simpsons episode "Three Gays of the Condo" James Taylor's face is pictured on the missing jigsaw puzzle piece.
  • His persona made an appearance in the South Park episode, "Fat Camp", where he sings "The Prostitute Song" (a song with a tune similar to Taylor's "Your Smiling Face") with Chef.
  • He often played with italian rock band Elio e le Storie Tese when touring in Italy

[edit] References

  1. ^ Calendar & Events: Spring Sing: Gershwin Award. UCLA.
  2. ^ The Immortals: The First Fifty. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.

[edit] 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.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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