{"id":5372924,"date":"2023-02-17T14:18:29","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T14:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.life.com\/?p=5372924"},"modified":"2023-02-17T15:49:59","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T15:49:59","slug":"james-taylor-the-songwriter-at-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.life.com\/arts-entertainment\/james-taylor-the-songwriter-at-75\/","title":{"rendered":"James Taylor: The Songwriter at 75"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following is from LIFE’s new special edition on James Taylor<\/a>, available online<\/a> and at retail outlers<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He could have been any American college student visiting London in 1968, except that James Taylor wasn\u2019t in college. He did have a guitar and he busked in the street for change, which he used to visit a record-your-own-record booth in Soho. There, he spent \u00a38 for 45 minutes of time to record a demo of a song he had written, the one he considered his best. Taylor was 20 years old. The song was called \u201cSomething in the Way She Moves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In London, he crashed at the flat of a friend named Albie Scott. Another friend\u2014his sometime bandmate Danny (Kootch) Kortchmar\u2014had given Taylor the phone number for Peter Asher, the head of A&R for the Beatles\u2019 new label, Apple Records. Asher, a former pop star as half of the duo Peter and Gordon, had had a number-one hit, \u201cA World Without Love,\u201d written by Paul McCartney. Now he was charged with finding new talent to ride the magnificent silk coattails of the post\u2013Sgt. Pepper<\/em> Fab Four. The exec agreed to meet with Taylor and listened to a few of his tunes. Then Asher \u201csuggested I come by the office later in the week and play my songs to whichever Beatle was around that day,\u201d Taylor recalled later in his audio memoir, Break Shot, named for the instant in a game of pool when the racked-and-ordered billiard balls are struck and violently scattered to an unknown fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the five-plus decades since his big break, Taylor has been one of the most successful recording artists in the world, and Asher his sometime producer and manager. Fact has calcified into legend over time, but Asher often has said that he stepped into the Beatles\u2019 offices on Baker Street with Taylor on that incredible day in 1968 and shouted: \u201cIs there a Beatle in the house?\u201d As if from a magic lamp, the genies McCartney and George Harrison materialized from behind closed doors, and Taylor was invited to play live with these gods who had the power to grant wishes. As the world\u2019s most popular entertainers, the Beatles, and Apple, had been inundated with demo tapes, most of them appalling. McCartney and Harrison listened to Taylor\u2019s music anyway. \u201cFor once, it was someone really great,\u201d McCartney said years later, while inducting Taylor into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. \u201cIt was this kind of haunting guy who could really play the guitar and really sing beautifully.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So beautifully, in fact, that Harrison would use the first line of Taylor\u2019s demo for a song of his own: \u201cSomething in the way she moves,\u201d Taylor sang to the Beatle that day, to which Harrison would later add \u201cattracts me like no other lover . . .\u201d \u201cSomething in the Way She Moves\u201d would become a slow-burning time-release hit for Taylor, and \u201cSomething\u201d an instant classic for the Beatles, covered by everyone from Elvis Presley to Frank Sinatra. But it started with Taylor in that record-your-own-record booth in Soho. As he sat in the Apple offices with two of the Beatles, he contemplated his change in circumstances and realized, as he would say many years later, \u201cThis is when my life passed through the looking glass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was young James Taylor\u2014long and thin as a switchblade, with a curtain of black hair drawn open on a face that launched a million album covers: blue eyes, blue denim shirt, the brooding gaze of the earnest singer-songwriter familiar from his breakthrough sophomore album, Sweet Baby James. Today, the six-foot-three Taylor remains as tall and lean as he was in his Mud Slide Slim persona of the early \u201970s. He\u2019s bald, the legacy of his father, who was shaving his head in the 1950s when only the actor Yul Brynner did so. Taylor smiles often now, a grandfatherly figure in his flat cap. Indeed, Taylor is a grandfather. He is at once a Northerner and a Southerner\u2014\u201ca Northern baby and a Southern child,\u201d as Carly Simon sang when she was his wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Taylor was born in New England but raised in North Carolina, then returned to New England equal parts Beacon Hill and Chapel Hill, the son of a \u201cDown East Yankee,\u201d as his mother described herself, and a Down South doctor. \u201cJames Taylor,\u201d as Time magazine noted in its cover story in 1971, \u201cmanaged to grow up in two of the most beautiful places in America.\u201d As such, Taylor sings equally in thrall to the country roads of Carolina and the Massachusetts Turnpike between Stockbridge and Boston. Like Johnny Cash, he\u2019s been everywhere, man. \u201cThe coldest I ever played was 19 degrees and the earth was like iron,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the hottest was probably\u2014not counting the lights\u2014100 degrees in Tucson, Arizona.\u201d His star was launched in England but he may be the quintessential American artist, bridging North and South, rural and urban, hot and cold, fire and rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has been both addict and recovering addict, a mellow folk-rock singer-songwriter whose nearly two decades of opiate addiction would seem more common in hard rock, blues, and jazzmen than in the elder statesman of mellow rock that he is now. These two sides of him may not be unrelated. In a famous essay called \u201cJames Taylor Marked for Death,\u201d the rock critic Lester Bangs dismissed Taylor and his mellow, \u201cdown-a-Carolina-path\u201d songs of introspection as anathema to rock and roll. Taylor has never read the Bangs piece but replied, in 2015 to Billboard, with his trademark self-deprecation. \u201cI\u2019m an opiate addict,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cMellow and smooth is fine for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That introspection and addiction have been two sides of the same coin. Taylor was hospitalized for mental health issues as a young man but has also come as close as any songwriter to divulging the meaning of existence. \u201cThe secret of life is enjoying the passage of time,\u201d he sang, while acknowledging in interviews the hubris of any man who claims to know what it\u2019s all about. And yet, he isn\u2019t wrong, is he? Taylor wrote \u201cSecret o\u2019 Life\u201d in 10 minutes outside a house he was having built on Martha\u2019s Vineyard, a house that was the fruit of having sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. Taylor has also won six Grammys and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, presented by McCartney. J.T. has also worked with and inspired other famous artists of his generation, having been a muse at various times to three phenomenal songwriters: Carly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His effect on later generations of musicians and music fans is enduring. It wasn\u2019t until 2015, somehow, that James Taylor had his first number-one album, Before This World. It narrowly eclipsed the number-two album, 1989 by Taylor Swift, the pop icon who had a favorite song in chorus, she told her mother one day: \u201cIt\u2019s called \u2018Fire and Rain\u2019 by a guy named James Taylor.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s really funny that you say that,\u201d Andrea Swift told her fifth-grade daughter, \u201cbecause you\u2019re kind of named after him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swift is hardly the only one. Garth Brooks named his daughter Taylor for the same reason. The young English singer-songwriter James Taylor-Watts, who performs as James TW, was also named after his parents\u2019 favorite musician. \u201cYou just call out my name,\u201d Taylor sang in 1971 on \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Friend,\u201d and now, more than 50 years later, people all over the world do just that when calling their own children and grandchildren. When Barack Obama presented Taylor with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation\u2019s highest civilian honor, in 2015, the White House cited among many other achievements the singer\u2019s continued relevance, his appeal to all ages, stating: \u201cEach generation that grows to know James Taylor\u2019s music will continue to be moved by his timelessness and enduring beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can attest to that. When my oldest daughter, Siobhan, was a child, she fell asleep every night to Taylor\u2019s Greatest Hits<\/em> CD. I was required to stay in the room until the end of the fourth song, the lullaby \u201cSweet Baby James,\u201d written 40 years earlier for Taylor\u2019s newborn nephew and namesake. In 2015, when she was 10 years old, Siobhan and I went to see Taylor perform live at an amphitheater in Hartford. Halfway through that show, Taylor announced there would be a short intermission. He didn\u2019t care for intermissions himself, he said, but the venue or promoter insisted on it so that fans could use the bathroom and buy concessions. \u201cI\u2019ll just stand backstage,\u201d he said, \u201clooking at the clock.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he didn\u2019t. Instead, Taylor spent the intermission sitting on the edge of the stage, haloed by the footlights, chatting with fans and posing for pictures. Nudged forward by me, Siobhan took my phone, snaked her way to the front row, and asked the artist for a selfie. But in the lights and the clamor\u2014his working life of the last half century\u2014Taylor misheard her request. Instead of posing for a picture in front of the iPhone that she\u2019d held aloft, he took the iPhone out of her trembling hands and signed the back of the case, boldly, legibly, with a black Sharpie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That case remains on a shelf in her former bedroom, the signature slowly fading into oblivion, the way \u201cMexico\u201d fades out at the end on that Greatest Hits <\/em>CD that Siobhan, now in college, fell asleep to every night in grade school. By \u201cMexico,\u201d the 10th song, she was always fast asleep. And so it was that night at the concert. Lulled by Taylor\u2019s familiar voice, she began to nod off in the amphitheater, her head leaning on my shoulder, her hands clutching the signed phone case, while I sat contentedly beneath the summer night sky thinking of something Taylor had sung earlier in the evening: The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a selection of photos from LIFE’s new special issue on James Taylor<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

<\/p>\n

Cover image by Eleanor Bentall\/Camera Press\/Redux<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor performed for the BBC in London, 1970.<\/p>\n

Michael Putland\/Hulton\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor performed at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario, 1970.<\/p>\n

Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor with Carole King and producer Lou Adler during the recording sessions for King’s album Tapestry, 1971.<\/p>\n

Jim McCrary\/Redferns\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor with his cat Pudding in Los Angeles, 1972.<\/p>\n

Peter Asher\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor at a benefit for presidential candidate George McGovern (to the right of Taylor) in 1971; others on the stage are (from left) Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones, Eleanor McGovern (George’s wife), and Carole King.<\/p>\n

PL Gould\/Images Press\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor with Carly Simon in New York’s Central Park during a record company event, 1977.<\/p>\n

Richard E. Aaron\/Redferns\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor, the musical guest on a 1979 episode of Saturday Night Live, joined in a sketch with that week’s host, Michael Palin.<\/p>\n

Alan Singer\/NBCU Photo Bank\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

Singer James Taylor, second from right, and members of the Taylor family share a laugh, prior to their concert at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum to benefit the Museum’s Save Our Ships Fund, 1981.<\/p>\n

Photo by Richard Drew\/AP\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor and Taylor Swift performed onstage during her “Speak Now” tour at Madison Square Garden on November 22, 2011 in New York City<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor and Ringo Starr (right) performed in 2018 at a benefit for VetsAid in Tacoma, Washington.<\/p>\n

Mat Hayward\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

\n
\n \"\"\n
\n

James Taylor, 1997.<\/p>\n

Brooks Kraft LLC\/Sygma\/Getty<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is from LIFE’s new special edition on James Taylor, available online and at retail outlers: He could have been any American college student visiting London in 1968, except that James Taylor wasn\u2019t in college. He did have a guitar and he busked in the street for change, which he used to visit a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":5372930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5372924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-people"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJames Taylor: The Songwriter at 75 - LIFE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/arts-entertainment\/james-taylor-the-songwriter-at-75\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"James Taylor: The Songwriter at 75 - LIFE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following is from LIFE’s new special edition on James Taylor, available online and at retail outlers: He could have been any American college student visiting London in 1968, except that James Taylor wasn\u2019t in college. 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He did have a guitar and he busked in the street for change, which he used to visit a ... 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