68 Facts About James Taylor

1.

James Vernon Taylor was born on March 12,1948 and is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.

2.

James Taylor enjoyed a resurgence in chart performance during the late 1990s and 2000s, when he recorded some of his most-awarded work.

3.

James Taylor achieved his first number-one album in the US in 2015 with his recording Before This World.

4.

James Taylor played the leading role in Monte Hellman's 1971 film Two-Lane Blacktop.

5.

James Vernon Taylor was born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on March 12,1948.

6.

James Taylor is of English and Scottish descent from the James Taylor family of the Montrose area, with the former being rooted in Massachusetts Bay Colony; his ancestors include Edmund Rice, an English colonist who co-founded Sudbury, Massachusetts.

7.

James Taylor's mother, Gertrude, studied singing with Marie Sundelius at the New England Conservatory of Music and was an aspiring opera singer before she married Isaac in 1946.

8.

James Taylor is the younger brother of musician Alex James Taylor.

9.

Isaac James Taylor later rose to become dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971.

10.

James Taylor took cello lessons as a child in North Carolina, before learning the guitar in 1960.

11.

In 1961, James Taylor went to Milton Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Massachusetts.

12.

James Taylor faltered during his junior year, feeling uneasy in the high-pressure college prep environment despite having a good scholastic performance.

13.

James Taylor earned a high school diploma in 1966 from the hospital's associated Arlington School.

14.

At Kortchmar's urging, James Taylor checked himself out of McLean and moved to New York City to form a band.

15.

James Taylor spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery; he required a throat operation to fix vocal cords damaged from singing too harshly.

16.

James Taylor decided to try being a solo act with a change of scenery.

17.

James Taylor gave a demo tape of songs, including "Something in the Way She Moves", to Asher, who then played the demo for Beatles Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

18.

James Taylor had this determination in his eye that I had never seen in anybody before.

19.

James Taylor recorded what would become his first album from July to October 1968, at Trident Studios, at the same time the Beatles were recording The White Album.

20.

James Taylor had been through so much by the time he was twenty that he had so much to express in his music.

21.

James Taylor was already singing with the conviction of a singer much older than himself.

22.

James Taylor underwent physeptone 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.

23.

In July 1969, James Taylor headlined a six-night stand at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.

24.

Once he had recovered, James Taylor moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer.

25.

Sweet Baby James was received at its time as a folk-rock masterpiece, an album that effectively showcased Taylor's talents to the mainstream public, marking a direction he would take in following years.

26.

In early 1972, James Taylor won his first Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, for "You've Got a Friend"; King won Song of the Year for the same song in that ceremony.

27.

James Taylor spent most of 1973 enjoying his new life as a married man and did not return to the recording studio until January 1974, when sessions for his fifth album began.

28.

Back in the forefront of popular music, James Taylor guested with Paul Simon on Art Garfunkel's recording of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World", which reached the Top 20 in the US and topped the AC charts in early 1978.

29.

James Taylor himself appeared in that production as a trucker; he performed "Brother Trucker" in character.

30.

On December 7,1980, James Taylor had an encounter with Mark David Chapman who would murder John Lennon just one day later.

31.

In March 1981, James Taylor released the album Dad Loves His Work whose themes concerned his relationship with his father, the course his ancestors had taken, and the effect that he and Simon had on each other.

32.

At the time, James Taylor was living on West End Avenue in Manhattan and on a methadone maintenance program to cure him of his drug addiction.

33.

James Taylor had thoughts of retiring by the time he played the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985.

34.

James Taylor was encouraged by the nascent democracy in Brazil at the time, buoyed by the positive reception he got from the large crowd and other musicians, and musically energized by the sounds and nature of Brazilian music.

35.

James Taylor provided a guest voice to The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer", and appeared later on in the series when the family put together a jigsaw puzzle with his face as the missing final piece.

36.

In 1995, James Taylor performed the role of the Lord in Randy Newman's Faust.

37.

In 1997, after six years since his last studio album, James Taylor released Hourglass, an introspective album that gave him the best critical reviews in almost twenty years.

38.

Also in 2002, James Taylor teamed with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss in singing "The Boxer" at the Kennedy Center Honors Tribute to Paul Simon.

39.

Always visibly active in environmental and liberal causes, in October 2004, James Taylor joined the Vote for Change tour playing a series of concerts in American swing states.

40.

James Taylor performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston on October 24,2004, on October 25,2007, both the anthem and "America" for the game on October 24,2013, and Game 1 on October 23,2018.

41.

James Taylor performed at Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals in Boston on June 5,2008, and at the NHL's Winter Classic game between the Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins.

42.

James Taylor sang Sam Cooke's classic "A Change Is Gonna Come" at an event honoring an artist played by Taylor's wife Caroline.

43.

In 2006, James Taylor performed Randy Newman's song "Our Town" for the Disney animated film Cars.

44.

On January 1,2007, James Taylor headlined the inaugural concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York honoring newly sworn in Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.

45.

Parts of the performance shown on CBS Sunday Morning in the December 23,2007, broadcast showed James Taylor alluding to his early drug problems by saying, "I played here a number of times in the 70s, allegedly".

46.

James Taylor has used versions of this joke on other occasions, and it appears as part of his One Man Band DVD and tour performances.

47.

In January 2008, James 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.

48.

The album forays into country and soul while being the latest proof that James Taylor is a more versatile singer than his best-known hits might suggest.

49.

On May 29,2009, James Taylor performed on the final episode of the original 17-year run of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

50.

On September 8,2009, James Taylor made an appearance at the 24th-season premiere block party of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Chicago's Michigan Avenue.

51.

James Taylor appeared briefly in the 2009 movie Funny People, where he played "Carolina in My Mind" for a MySpace corporate event as the opening act for the main character.

52.

On January 1,2010, James Taylor sang the American national anthem at the NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park, while Daniel Powter sang the Canadian national anthem.

53.

On March 7,2010, James Taylor sang the Beatles' "In My Life" in tribute to deceased artists at the 82nd Academy Awards.

54.

The tour was a major commercial success and in some locations found James Taylor playing arenas instead of his usual theaters or amphitheaters.

55.

James Taylor appeared in 2011 in the ABC comedy Mr Sunshine as the ex-husband of the character played by Allison Janney, and he performs a duet of sorts on Leon Russell's 1970 classic "A Song for You".

56.

On November 22,2011, James Taylor performed "Fire and Rain" with James Taylor Swift who was named after him, at the last concert of her Speak Now World Tour in Madison Square Garden.

57.

James Taylor was active in support of Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign and opened the 2012 Democratic National Convention singing three songs.

58.

James Taylor performed "America the Beautiful" at the President's second inauguration.

59.

James Taylor was accompanied by the MIT Symphony Orchestra and three MIT a cappella groups while performing his songs "The Water is Wide" and "Shower the People".

60.

James Taylor called the choir "a national treasure" In addition to the symphony and choir he was backed by some of his touring band pianist Charles Floyd, bassist Jimmy Johnson and percussionist Nick Halley.

61.

The album which was released on June 16 through Concord Records, arrived on top the chart of July 4,2015, more than 45 years after Taylor arrived on the list with Sweet Baby James.

62.

James Taylor cancelled his 2016 concert in Manila as a protest to the extrajudicial killings of suspects in the Philippine Drug War.

63.

In January 2020, James Taylor released his audio memoir Break Shot: My First 21 Years on the streaming service Audible.

64.

At the 63rd Grammy Awards, the album won the award, the first for James Taylor after being nominated in the same category in the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008 for James Taylor at Christmas.

65.

James Taylor married singer Carly Simon in November 1972, in a small ceremony in Simon's New York apartment.

66.

James Taylor married actress Kathryn Walker at the Cathedral of St John the Divine on December 14,1985.

67.

James Taylor helped him fight his heroin addiction, but they divorced in 1996.

68.

In 1995, James Taylor began dating Caroline "Kim" Smedvig, the director of public relations and marketing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.