This current month of March will feature blog entries on the milestone birthdays—on separate dates—of four artists whose music I greatly appreciate and who have had a lasting impact. (The “Entertainment Weekend” threads, which will be suspended for the remainder of March, will return on hold Friday, April 6, 2018. That is the weekend following Good Friday and Easter.) Here is the first of those four artists…
James Taylor, who has won three Grammys for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance (1971’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” 1977’s “Handy Man,” and an updated 2001’s “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”), turns 70 on March 12, 2018.
Born March 12, 1948, in Boston, Massachusetts, Taylor’s career breakthrough came in 1970 with “Fire and Rain,” which garnered him 1970 Grammy nominations for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
His biggest LP hit was JT, which garnered him a 1977 Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, and which included “Secret O’ Life,” “Traffic Jam” and, my personal favorite, “Your Smiling Face.” As noted above, not only did Taylor win a Grammy for his pop vocal work but JT won Producer of the Year for Peter Asher. (This was the year The Eagles won Record of the Year for “Hotel California” and Album of the Year was awarded to Fleetwood Mac for Rumours.)
Taylor did not have as great a level of commercial success in the 1980s. (Not to imply that all good music must be a commercial hit!) But, his albums That’s Why I’m Here (1985), which included the self-titled track as well as “Only One” and “Everyday,” and Never Die Young (1988), with the self-titled track as well as “Sun On the Moon” and “Sweet Potato Pie,” were pretty good. (I thought Never Die Young was underappreciated.)
In 2016, Taylor was among the honorees at the 39th Kennedy Center Honors.
James Taylor was married to fellow singer–songwriter Carly Simon (who won the 1988 Oscar for “Let the River Run,” from Mike Nichols’s Working Girl), from 1972–1983; Kathryn Walker, the retired Emmy winning actress (1976’s The Adams Chronicles), from 1985–1995; and he has been married since 2001 to Caroline Smedvig, an executive with Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has four children.
For more information on James Taylor: Wikipedia — James Taylor.
Here are ten songs from James Taylor:
Here is the trailer showing James Taylor—as an actor and as a lead—in Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop (1971). It is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Criterion Collection. Two-Lane Blacktop also stars a trio, each no longer alive, who are the great Warren Oates (1928–1982), Laurie Bird (1953–1979), and The Beach Boys’s Dennis Wilson (1944–1983).…
Here is a two-part interview, from 2015, between Tavis Smiley and James Taylor:
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