Summer 2010 was a tough one for artists and concert promoters. Plagued by lousy ticket sales that resulted in a spate of scrapped shows and canceled tours by acts like the newly reunited Limp Bizkit, ‘70s icons the Eagles, and the resurrected, estrogen-fueled Lilith Fair, among many others, the live music business took a whooping in what has been called the worst summer concert season since the mid-1990s. The seeming disinterest on the part of concertgoers was blamed on a poor economy coupled with bloated ticket prices, and the sheer glut of acts out on the road during the heart of summer.
One of the few bright spots in that otherwise dismal concert season, however, was the double bill of James Taylor and Carole King. Fans turned out in droves for the duo’s much celebrated Troubadour Reunion Tour, which paid homage to the 40th anniversary of the pair’s first performance together at the legendary West Hollywood nightclub in November 1970. Unlike the host of other big-name acts who vied unsuccessfully for our hard-earned dollars last summer, Taylor and King played to packed houses nearly everywhere they touched down.
With The Troubadour Tour behind him now (there will not be another, Taylor maintains, save a possible European leg), James Taylor will hit the road once again in February on a run of intimate dates across the US with yet another special guest. This time out, and for the first time ever, he will be joined by singer-songwriter Ben Taylor, his son with Carly Simon. The younger Taylor, who recently turned 34, bears a striking resemblance to his famous father and has a singing voice that's nearly indistinguishable from his. Ben is currently putting some finishing touches on his new album, Listening, which is set for release in 2011 with a worldwide tour to follow. As a warm-up to that tour, Ben Taylor will benefit plenty from these dates. He has always drawn what he knows of performing from his father, who spends half of any given year touring. He calls James his "male archetype" and admires his father's showmanship and the easy rapport he shares with his audience.
Initially intimidated by his parents' success, Ben faced internal pressure and high public expectation when he first went into the family business. He tried to distance his career from that of his parents, sidestepping the folk label with what he describes as "neo-psychedelic folk funk." Folk with a kick. Eventually, though, he embraced his folksy roots and tapped into his impressive gene pool.
James Taylor was, after all, the embodiment of the American singer-songwriter in the late '60s and '70s. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in March 1948, James was raised in the tranquil countryside of Carrboro, North Carolina, where his physician father would go on to become the Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. His mother was a classically trained soprano who encouraged James and his siblings in music. Taylor first learned to play the cello as a child and then moved onto the guitar as he was entering his teens.
A frail and troubled boy, James wanted for nothing. He divided his time between North Carolina and summers on Martha's Vineyard where, at age 15, he befriended Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from New York. The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together. Taylor wrote his first song on the guitar at age 14 and continued to learn the instrument effortlessly. By the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch."
At age 16, James began attending Milton Academy, a prep boarding school, but found it an ill fit. Feeling alienated and pressured, he left the Academy to finish out his junior year in his hometown high school and assumed electric guitar duties in a rock band with his brother Alex called The Fabulous Corsairs. Taylor headed back to Milton Academy for his senior year but ended up committing himself to a mental institution when he fell into a deep depression. Of his lifelong struggle with mental health issues, Taylor considers them innate, saying that, "It's an inseparable part of my personality that I have these feelings." Following a nine-month stay, he checked himself out of the institution and headed for New York City where he hooked up with Kortchmar to form the short-lived band, The Flying Machine. It was during his stay in New York that Taylor developed a full-blown heroin addiction.
Penniless and hanging out in the streets, James was rescued by his father, who flew to New York to retrieve his son. Taylor spent six months in a treatment facility before moving to London on a small family inheritance. He rented a flat in Notting Hill, which was a hotbed of drug activity in 1968, and soon fell back on familiar ways. At the urging of his old friend Danny Kortchmar, Taylor took a demo tape to Peter Asher, who knew Kortchmar when his band The King Bees opened for Peter and Gordon. As the head of the new Apple Records, Asher was looking for fresh talent. Both he and Beatle Paul McCartney liked Taylor’s work and gave the thin, drug-weary musician the opportunity to record. That effort, the eponymous James Taylor, included the classic songs “Carolina in My Mind” and “Something in the Way She Moves,” but suffered commercially due to Taylor’s inability to promote the album.
Depressed and still hooked on heroin, Taylor returned to America and entered the Austin Riggs Mental Institution. Peter Asher, who was frustrated with the chaos at Apple Records, followed suit and offered to manage and produce Taylor. He secured a contract with Warner Brothers Records for the beleaguered artist and rounded up a team of supportive musician friends that included Kortchmar, bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Russ Kunkel, and pianist/vocalist Carole King. Once recovered, Taylor began recording sessions for what would be his breakthrough album, 1970’s superlative Sweet Baby James. Many of the songs that appeared on the record were written while he was institutionalized. The album eventually spent two years on the US charts and contained the autobiographical gem, "Fire And Rain," which stands as one of the finest songs of that era. Sweet Baby James, a Grammy nominee for Album of the Year in 1971, made Taylor one of the main forces of the burgeoning folk movement.
The newly clean Taylor followed up with Mud Slide Slim and The Blue Horizon in 1971, building on the success of Sweet Baby James with his version of Carole King's "You've Got a Friend," which won Taylor his first Grammy and sent the album to the #2 spot on the charts. Next came One Man Dog late in 1972, which contained yet another hit, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight."
Taylor's albums began to form a pattern of mostly original compositions mixed with an immaculately chosen blend of R&B, soul and rock 'n' roll classics. Ironically most of his subsequent hits were non-originals, such as Holland/Dozier/Holland's "How Sweet It Is," Otis Blackwell's "Handy Man," and Goffin/King's "Up On The Roof." Taylor was blossoming onstage as well, displaying a new confidence and sparkling wit where once his shyness was excruciating.
James Taylor had his share of ups and downs over the years that followed. After taking a break from recording, he returned in 1997 with the release of the introspective Hourglass, an album that earned Taylor his best critical reviews in almost twenty years and breathed new life into his career. He followed up with the platinum-selling October Road in 2002 and Covers in 2008, an album of cover songs Taylor had been performing off and on in concert for years. Covers earned Taylor two Grammy Award nominations. Now an elder statesman of the classic singer-songwriter genre, who better than Taylor himself to pass the torch onto his gifted progeny.
James and Ben Taylor will perform together in 18 cities in the US, with sold-out concert dates running between February and April 2011. Additional James Taylor tour dates are scheduled at Carnegie Hall in New York and Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, though these are solo gigs and do not feature Taylor’s son. In addition to his upcoming tour, Ben Taylor is scheduled to perform at the 2011 South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.
