Personal Information
Career
Awards: Include nine gold albums, four platinum albums, and a 1978 Grammy Award.
Addresses
James Taylor's poetic soft-rock ballads have been an American favorite for more
than fifteen years. Taylor has been richly
represented on the pop charts since 1970, with hits such as "Fire and Rain," "Carolina in My Mind," "You've Got a Friend," and "Handy Man," but his work
transcends the banality of most pop music. As Burt Korall puts it in the Saturday Review, the songwriter-singer-guitarist "brings to bear a
substantial gift and admirable artfulness in
the creation and performance of songs. Endearingly musical, he pairs memorable
melodic lines with words that fit
their contours tightly and well and
document a singularity of vision. ... The songs are delightful and enriching." Taylor's work is touching
because it reveals intensely personal yet universal yearnings--and does so with sweet, simple melodies that
do not overshadow the sentiment. "A fund of feelings, buoyantly lyrical and
light on the one hand and
darkly reflective on the other, mingle in his monologues," Korall writes. "One cannot remain indifferent for long."
At the outset of his career, Taylor was called a "new troubadour," an artist who
was leading rock music away from
the frenzied pitch it had established. Although Taylor feels that others
preceded him in this endeavor--Bob Dylan, the Mamas and the Papas--he was the first
to reach mainstream superstardom with the sound. His "tunes," as he calls them, are fusions of
blues and jazz, folk (especially the ballad form), and even country music; though he has
gone back toward classic rock in
his more recent albums, most of his
work is still acoustic. Korall claims that what
emerges from the pastiche of Taylor's influences "is simultaneously literate and
formal and relaxed and unpretentious. The thrust is rather direct, yet each one of Taylor's stories of love, loneliness, anguish, and puzzlement is
open to interpretation. He always leaves the
listener that option." New York Times Magazine contributor Susan Braudy concludes simply that Taylor "sounds like a kid
sitting by himself on his bed
singing his lonely interior monologues."
Most musicians sing about heartache, despair, and confusion, but few have
experienced those feelings more intensely than James Taylor. The son of an affluent medical-school dean with a
spacious home in North Carolina, Taylor grew up with every privilege--private schooling, summer vacations in Martha's Vineyard, plenty of money, and the affection
of his family. The privileges were accompanied by expectations, however, and Taylor found himself enrolled
in the strict Milton Academy, a boys' school in Massachusetts. The lonely young man
hated the rigors of the academy, and when he
returned home he found himself alienated
from his North Carolina cohorts as well. At seventeen he became
severely depressed and voluntarily entered McLean Hospital, an exclusive private psychiatric institution. Taylor stayed at McLean for ten months, finishing his high-school studies and writing
his first songs there. Then, in the summer of 1966, he left without
formal discharge and joined some friends in New York City.
In New York Taylor and his friend Danny Kortchmar formed a band
called the Flying Machine. The group found a
regular gig at the Night Owl in Greenwich Village, but Taylor only earned about
twelve dollars a night. Gradually Taylor's personal problems resurfaced, and to make
matters worse he became dependent on heroin. In January of 1968 Taylor fled New York for a new
start in London. He produced an unpolished
demonstration tape at a London studio and began
to submit it to producers. He got an enthusiastic
response from Peter Asher, a former performer
who was scouting talent for Apple Records, a company founded
by the Beatles. Both Asher and Paul McCartney liked Taylor's sound, and they signed
him to an Apple contract. Taylor's first album, James Taylor, was released by Apple in 1969. The work, which included backup
playing by McCartney and a number
of songs Taylor wrote himself, was a critical success, but it failed
to sell well. Discouraged--and debilitated by his heroin use--Taylor returned to the United States for another long
stay in a mental institution.
By midsummer 1969 Taylor's health was restored, and he began to tour. He broke his contract with Apple and signed with Warner Brothers in America, bringing Peter Asher along as his personal manager/producer. In 1970 Taylor released Sweet Baby James on the Warner label, a collection of
simply orchestrated soft folk-rock songs that has
since sold more than two million copies. From Sweet Baby James Taylor had his first number-one single, "Fire and Rain," a poignant work
that explores the hopelessness of mental
illness and the sadness of suicide. Sweet Baby James and subsequent Taylor albums have revealed
a signature style, according to Rick Mitz in Stereo Review, a style characterized by "rich melodies and the
careful melding of music and lyric. ... But the distinguishing trademark of ?Taylor's sound? is self-revelation through lyrics."
A Rolling Stone correspondent notes that Taylor achieved "instant prominence" and drew the
praise of critics and fans "for the confessional boldness
of his dark folk narratives--inky, anguish-racked songs that would
have made for unnerving listening had
they not been structured around the
bright resonances of his nasal North Carolina twang and the clipped, suspended chordings of
his ringing acoustic guitar. He crooned about confinement
in a mental institution, about nervous breakdowns and dungeon-deep depressions, and somehow he
left such disquieting realities a little
gentler on our minds." A Time magazine contributor elaborates: "What [Taylor] has endured and sings about, with much restraint and dignity, are mainly 'head' problems, those pains that
a lavish quota of middle-class advantages ... do not seem to prevent, and may in fact exacerbate. Drugs, underachievement, the failure of will, alienation, the doorway to suicide, the struggle back to life--James Taylor has been there himself."
Life improved for Taylor throughout the 1970s--he married singer Carly Simon and had two children--and many of his
songs lost their anguished edge. He did not lack for hits, however. His tunes "Country Road," "Handy Man," "How Sweet It Is," and "Her Town Too" made the billboard charts, as did the
cheerful song he wrote for his daughter, "Your Smiling Face." Gradually Taylor's music began to
take on a harder rock edge too, especially in concert. To quote Mitz, Taylor "has survived and thrived
in a business that eats up
its musicians like popcorn."
Now in his forties, Taylor continues to cut
albums and write his own music, but he admits
that composing has become more difficult for him. "I want to write great songs," he told Rolling Stone, "but I don't want to suffer, you know. I'm not going to
wear a couple of shoe sizes
too small just because I might write a better song." The suffering has not
gone out of Taylor's life completely, though. He still struggles with
alcohol abuse and depression, combatting both by
exercising and taking time to relax. His marriage to Carly Simon ended in divorce
after several years of mutual bitterness, but Newsweek correspondent Harry F. Waters suggests that such
setbacks have only caused Taylor to "grow up" musically. The singer himself seems to agree. "I spent a lot
of time with a feeling of negative faith," he told Newsweek, "an assumption that the
world had a nasty surprise just
around each corner. But I'm comfortable now. I don't have any investment
any longer in things turning out badly."
Selected Discography
Sources
~~ Anne Janette Johnson
Full, name James Vernon Taylor; born March 12, 1948, in Boston, Mass.; son of Isaac M. (a medical doctor and
former dean of the University of North Carolina Medical School) and Gertrude (a singer, maiden name Woodard) Taylor; married Carly Simon (a singer), 1972 (divorced); children: Sarah, Benjamin. Education: Graduated from high school.
Singer, songwriter, guitarist, 1968-. Signed with Apple Records, 1968, produced first album, James Taylor, 1969; moved to Warner Brothers Records, 1970, had first hit album, Sweet Baby James, 1970, and first number one single, "Fire and Rain," 1970; moved to Columbia Records, 1977. Appeared in the film "Two Lane Blacktop," 1971.
Office--c/o Asher, 644 N. Doheny Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90069.
James Taylor, Apple, 1969.
Sweet Baby James, Warner Brothers, 1970.
James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine, Euphoria, 1971.
Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, Warner Brothers, 1971.
One Man Dog, Warner Brothers, 1972.
Walking Man, Warner Brothers, 1975.
Rainy Day Man, Trip, 1975.
Two Originals, Warner Brothers, 1975.
Gorilla, Warner Brothers, 1975.
In the Pocket, Warner Brothers, 1976.
The Best of James Taylor, Warner Brothers, 1976.
J. T., Columbia, 1977.
James Taylor's Greatest Hits, Warner Brothers, 1977.
Flag, Columbia, 1979.
Dad Loves His Work, Columbia, 1980.
That's Why I'm Here, Columbia, 1985.
Never Die Young, Columbia, 1988.
Newsweek, February 8, 1971; November 4, 1985.
New Yorker, November 25, 1972.
New York Times Magazine, February 21, 1971.
People, October 6, 1980.
Rolling Stone, September 6, 1979; June 11, 1981.
Saturday Review, September 12, 1970.
Stereo Review, January, 1978.
Time, March 1, 1971.