Artist: James Taylor

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.[2] He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide.[3] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Taylor

Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the No. 3 single "Fire and Rain" and had his first No. 1 hit in 1971 with his recording of "You've Got a Friend", written by Carole King in the same year. His 1976 Greatest Hits album was certified Diamond and has sold 12 million copies in the US alone. Following his 1977 album JT, he has retained a large audience over the decades. Every album that he released from 1977 to 2007 sold over 1 million copies. He enjoyed a resurgence in chart performance during the late 1990s and 2000s, when he recorded some of his most-awarded work (including Hourglass, October Road, and Covers). He achieved his first number-one album in the US in 2015 with his recording Before This World.[4]

Taylor is also known for his covers, such as "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" and "Handy Man", as well as originals such as "Sweet Baby James".[4] He played the leading role in Monte Hellman's 1971 film Two-Lane Blacktop.


Early years

James Vernon Taylor was born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on March 12, 1948. His father, Isaac M. Taylor, worked as a resident physician at the hospital[5][6] and came from a wealthy Southern family.[5] Taylor is of English and Scottish descent, with the former being rooted in Massachusetts Bay Colony; his ancestors include Edmund Rice, an English colonist who co-founded Sudbury, Massachusetts.[7] His mother, Gertrude (née Woodard; 1921–2015), studied singing with Marie Sundelius at the New England Conservatory of Music and was an aspiring opera singer before she married Isaac in 1946.[5][8] Taylor is the younger brother of musician Alex Taylor (1947–1993) and the older brother of musicians Kate Taylor (born 1949) and Livingston Taylor (born 1950).[9] His youngest sibling, a brother named Hugh (born 1952), was also a musician; Hugh eventually left the music industry and has operated The Outermost Inn, a bed-and-breakfast in Aquinnah, Massachusetts, with his wife since 1989.[9][10]

In 1951, Taylor and his family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina,[11] when Isaac took a job as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.[12] They built a house in the Morgan Creek area off the present Morgan Creek Road, which was sparsely populated.[13] James later said, "Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people."[13] James attended a public primary school in Chapel Hill.[5] Isaac's career prospered, but he was frequently away from home on military service at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, or as part of Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica in 1955 and 1956.[14] Isaac Taylor later rose to become dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971.[15] Beginning in 1953, the Taylors spent summers on Martha's Vineyard.[16]

Taylor took cello lessons as a child in North Carolina, before learning the guitar in 1960.[17] His guitar style evolved, influenced by hymns, carols, and the music of Woody Guthrie, and his technique derived from his bass clef-oriented cello training and from experimenting on his sister Kate's keyboards: "My style was a finger-picking style that was meant to be like a piano, as if my thumb were my left hand, and my first, second, and third fingers were my right hand."[18] Spending summer holidays with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York.[19] The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together, and Kortchmar felt that Taylor's singing had a "natural sense of phrasing, every syllable beautifully in time. I knew James had that thing."[20] Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at 14, and he continued to learn the instrument effortlessly.[18] By the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch".[21]

In 1961, Taylor went to Milton Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Massachusetts. He faltered during his junior year, feeling uneasy in the high-pressure college prep environment despite having a good scholastic performance.[22] The Milton headmaster later said, "James was more sensitive and less goal-oriented than most students of his day."[23] He returned home to North Carolina to finish out the semester at Chapel Hill High School.[22] There he joined a band formed by his brother Alex called The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs), playing electric guitar; in 1964, they cut a single in Raleigh that featured James's song "Cha Cha Blues" on the B-side.[22] Having lost touch with his former school friends in North Carolina, Taylor returned to Milton for his senior year,[22] where he started applying to colleges to complete his education.[24] But he felt part of a "life that [he was] unable to lead", and he became depressed; he slept 20 hours each day, and his grades collapsed.[22][25] In late 1965 he committed himself to McLean, a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts,[22] where he was treated with chlorpromazine, and where the organized days began to give him a sense of time and structure.[23][25] As the Vietnam War escalated, Taylor received a psychological rejection from Selective Service System when he appeared before them with two white-suited McLean assistants and was uncommunicative.[26] Taylor earned a high school diploma in 1966 from the hospital's associated Arlington School.[26] He later viewed his nine-month stay at McLean as "a lifesaver... like a pardon or like a reprieve",[25] and both his brother Livingston and his sister Kate later were patients and students there as well.[23] As for his mental health struggles, Taylor thought of them as innate and said: "It's an inseparable part of my personality that I have these feelings."[24]

Career
1966–1969: Early career

At Kortchmar's urging, Taylor checked himself out of McLean and moved to New York City to form a band.[26] They recruited Joel O'Brien, formerly of Kortchmar's old band King Bees to play drums, and Taylor's childhood friend Zachary Wiesner (son of academic Jerome Wiesner) to play bass. After Taylor rejected the notion of naming the group after him, they called themselves the Flying Machine.[23][27] They played songs that Taylor had written at and about McLean, such as "Knocking 'Round the Zoo", "Don't Talk Now", and "The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream".[25][27] In some other songs, Taylor romanticized his life, but he was plagued by self-doubt.[28] By summer 1966, they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village, alongside acts such as the Turtles and Lothar and the Hand People.[29]

Taylor associated with a motley group of people and began using heroin, to Kortchmar's dismay.[23][29] In a late 1966 hasty recording session, the group cut a single, Taylor's "Night Owl", backed with his "Brighten Your Night with My Day".[30] Released on Jay Gee Records, a subsidiary of Jubilee Records, it received some radio airplay in the Northeast,[30] but only charted at No. 102 nationally.[31] Other songs had been recorded during the same session, but Jubilee declined to go forward with an album.[30] After a series of poorly-chosen appearances outside New York, culminating with a three-week stay at a failing nightspot in Freeport, Bahamas for which they were never paid, the Flying Machine broke up.[30] (A UK band with the same name emerged in 1969 with the hit song "Smile a Little Smile for Me". The New York band's recordings were later released in 1971 as James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine.)

Taylor would later say of this New York period, "I learned a lot about music and too much about drugs."[28] Indeed, his drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction during the final Flying Machine period: "I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get a drink."[30] He hung out in Washington Square Park, playing guitar to ward off depression and then passing out, letting runaways and criminals stay at his apartment.[32] Finally out of money and abandoned by his manager, he made a desperate call one night to his father. Isaac Taylor flew to New York and staged a rescue, renting a car and driving all night back to North Carolina with James and his possessions.[32] Taylor spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery; he also required a throat operation to fix vocal cords damaged from singing too harshly.[33]

Taylor decided to try being a solo act with a change of scenery. In late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London, living in various areas: Notting Hill, Belgravia, and Chelsea.[34] After recording some demos in Soho, his friend Kortchmar gave him his next big break. Kortchmar used his association with the King Bees (who once opened for Peter and Gordon), to connect Taylor to Peter Asher. Asher was A&R head for the Beatles' newly formed label Apple Records.[35] Taylor gave a demo tape of songs, including "Something in the Way She Moves", to Asher,[36] who then played the demo for Beatles Paul McCartney and George Harrison. McCartney remembers his first impression: "I just heard his voice and his guitar and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great.'"[35] Taylor became the first non-British act signed to Apple,[35] and he credits Asher for "opening the door" to his singing career.[36] Taylor said of Asher, who later became his manager, "I knew from the first time that we met that he was the right person to steer my career. He had this determination in his eye that I had never seen in anybody before."[37]: 70  Living chaotically in various places with various women, Taylor wrote additional material, including "Carolina in My Mind", and rehearsed with a new backing band.[38] 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.[38][39] McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on "Carolina in My Mind", whose lyric "holy host of others standing around me" referred to the Beatles, and the title phrase of Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the lyrical starting point for Harrison's classic "Something".[40][41] McCartney and Asher brought in arranger Richard Anthony Hewson to add both orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual "link" passages between them; they would receive a mixed reception, at best.[40][42]



James had been through so much by the time he was twenty that he had so much to express in his music. Other young artists of his age whom I worked with sang about how good or bad life was but really had no idea what they were singing about. James was already singing with the conviction of a singer much older than himself. Everything that he had already been through was evident in his songwriting.

—Peter Asher, Taylor's manager[37]: 66 

During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit by using heroin and methedrine.[40] He 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.[43] Meanwhile, Apple released his debut album, James Taylor, in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the US.[43] Critical reception was generally positive, including a complimentary review in Rolling Stone by Jon Landau, who said that "this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I've inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out."[42] The record's commercial potential suffered from Taylor's inability to promote it because of his hospitalization, and it sold poorly; "Carolina in My Mind" was released as a single but failed to chart in the UK and only reached No. 118 on the U.S. charts.[43]

In July 1969, Taylor headlined a six-night stand at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. On July 20, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival as the last act and was cheered by thousands of fans who stayed in the rain to hear him.[44][45] Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months.[46] However, while recovering, he continued to write songs and in October 1969 signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records.[46]

1970–1972: Fame and commercial success

Taylor in the early 1970s

Once he had recovered, Taylor moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer. In December 1969, he held the recording sessions for his second album there. Titled Sweet Baby James, and featuring the participation of Carole King, the album was released in February 1970 and was Taylor's critical and popular breakthrough, buoyed by the single "Fire and Rain", a song about both Taylor's experiences attempting to break his drug habit by undergoing treatment in psychiatric institutions and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr. Both the album and the single reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts, with Sweet Baby James selling more than 1.5 million copies in its first year[23] and eventually more than 3 million in the United States alone. 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. It earned several Grammy Award nominations including one for Album of the Year. It went on to be listed at No. 103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, with "Fire and Rain" listed as No. 227 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004.

During the time that Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. In October 1970, he performed with Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and the Canadian band Chilliwack at a Vancouver benefit concert that funded Greenpeace's protests of 1971 nuclear weapons tests by the US Atomic Energy Commission at Amchitka, Alaska; this performance was released in album format in 2009 as Amchitka, The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace. In January 1971, sessions for Taylor's next album began.

He appeared on The Johnny Cash Show, singing "Sweet Baby James", "Fire and Rain", and "Country Road", on February 17, 1971. His career success at this point and appeal to female fans of various ages piqued tremendous interest in him, prompting a March 1, 1971, Time magazine cover story of him as "the face of new rock".[23] It compared his strong-but-brooding persona to that of Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff and to The Sorrows of Young Werther, and said, "Taylor's use of elemental imagery—darkness and sunlight, references to roads traveled and untraveled, to fears spoken and left unsaid—reaches a level both of intimacy and controlled emotion rarely achieved in purely pop music."[23] One of the writers described his look as "a cowboy Jesus", to which Taylor later replied, "I thought I was trying to look like George Harrison."[47]

Released in April 1971, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon also gained critical acclaim and contained Taylor's biggest hit single in the US, a version of Carole King's new "You've Got a Friend" (featuring backing vocals by Joni Mitchell), which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late July. The follow-up single, "Long Ago and Far Away", also made the Top 40 and reached No. 4 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The album itself reached No. 2 on the album charts, which would be Taylor's highest position ever until the release of his 2015 album, Before This World, which went to No. 1 superseding Taylor Swift. In early 1972, Taylor won his first Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, for "You've Got a Friend"; King also won Song of the Year for the same song in that ceremony. The album went on to sell 2.5 million copies in the United States.

November 1972 heralded the release of Taylor's fourth album, One Man Dog. A concept album primarily recorded in his home recording studio, it featured a cameo by Linda Ronstadt along with Carole King, Carly Simon, and John McLaughlin. The album consisted of eighteen short pieces of music put together. Reception was generally lukewarm and, despite making the Top 10 of the Billboard Album Charts, its overall sales were disappointing. The lead single, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight", peaked at No. 14 on the Hot 100, and the follow-up, "One Man Parade", barely reached the Top 75. Almost simultaneously, Taylor married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon on November 3, in a small ceremony at her Murray Hill, Manhattan apartment.[48] A post-concert party following a Taylor performance at Radio City Music Hall turned into a large-scale wedding party, and the Simon-Taylor marriage would find much public attention over the following years.[48] They had two children, Sarah Maria "Sally" Taylor, born January 7, 1974, and Benjamin Simon "Ben" Taylor, born January 22, 1977.[49] During their marriage, the couple would guest on each other's albums and have two hit singles as duet partners: a cover of Inez & Charlie Foxx's "Mockingbird" and a cover of The Everly Brothers' "Devoted to You".

1973–1976: Career ups and downs

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. Walking Man was released in June and featured appearances of Paul and Linda McCartney and guitarist David Spinozza. The album was a critical and commercial disaster and was his first album to miss the Top 5 since his contract with Warner. It received poor reviews and sold only 300,000 copies in the United States. The title track failed to appear on the Top 100.

However, James Taylor's artistic fortunes spiked again in 1975 when the Gold album Gorilla reached No. 6 and provided one of his biggest hit singles, a cover version of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", featuring wife Carly on backing vocals and reached No. 5 in America and No. 1 in Canada. On the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the track also reached the top, and the follow-up single, the feelgood "Mexico", featuring a guest appearance by Crosby & Nash, also reached the Top 5 of that list. A well-received album, Gorilla showcased Taylor's electric, lighter side that was evident on Walking Man. However, it was arguably a more consistent and fresher-sounding Taylor, with songs such as "Mexico", "Wandering" and "Angry Blues". It also featured a song about his daughter Sally, "Sarah Maria".

Gorilla was followed in 1976 by In the Pocket, Taylor's last studio album to be released under Warner Bros. Records. The album found him with many colleagues and friends, including Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, and Stevie Wonder (who co-wrote a song with Taylor and contributed a harmonica solo). A melodic album, it was highlighted with the single "Shower the People", an enduring song that hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart and hit 22 on the Pop Charts. However, the album was not well received, reaching No. 16 and being criticized, particularly by Rolling Stone. Still, In The Pocket went on to be certified gold.

With the close of Taylor's contract with Warner, in November, the label released Greatest Hits, the album that comprised most of his best work between 1970 and 1976. With time, it became his best-selling album ever. It was certified 11× Platinum in the US, earned a Diamond certification by the RIAA, and eventually sold close to 20 million copies worldwide.

1977–1981: Move to Columbia and continued success

In 1977 Taylor signed with Columbia Records. Between March and April, he quickly recorded his first album for the label. JT, released that June, gave Taylor his best reviews since Sweet Baby James, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year in 1978. Peter Herbst of Rolling Stone was particularly favorable to the album, of which he wrote in its August 11, 1977 issue, "JT is the least stiff and by far the most various album Taylor has done. That's not meant to criticize Taylor's earlier efforts. ... But it's nice to hear him sounding so healthy."[50] JT reached No. 4 on the Billboard charts and sold more than 3 million copies in the United States alone. The album's Triple Platinum status ties it with Sweet Baby James as Taylor's all-time biggest-selling studio album. It was propelled by the successful cover of Jimmy Jones's and Otis Blackwell's "Handy Man", which hit No. 1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, earning Taylor another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version. The song also topped the Canadian charts. The success of the album propelled the release of two further singles; the up-tempo pop "Your Smiling Face", an enduring live favorite, reached the American Top 20; however, "Honey Don't Leave L.A.", which Danny Kortchmar wrote and composed for Taylor, did not enjoy much success, reaching only No. 61.

Back in the forefront of popular music, Taylor guested with Paul Simon on Art Garfunkel's recording of a cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World", which reached the Top 20 in the U.S. and topped the AC charts in early 1978. After briefly working on Broadway, he took a one-year break, reappearing in the summer of 1979, with the cover-studded Platinum album titled Flag, featuring a Top 30 version of Gerry Goffin's and Carole King's "Up on the Roof". (Two selections from Flag, "Millworker" and "Brother Trucker" were featured on the PBS production of the Broadway musical based on Studs Terkel's non-fiction book Working, which Terkel himself hosted. Taylor himself appeared in that production as a trucker; he performed "Brother Trucker" in character.) Taylor also appeared on the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden, where he made a memorable live performance of "Mockingbird" with his wife Carly. The concert appeared on both the No Nukes album and film.

On December 7, 1980, Taylor had an encounter with Mark David Chapman who would murder John Lennon just one day later. Taylor told the BBC in 2010: "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon. And it was surreal to actually have contact with the guy 24 hours before he shot John." The next night, Taylor, who lived in a building next-door to Lennon, heard the assassination occur. Taylor commented: "I heard him shoot—five, just as quick as you could pull the trigger, about five explosions."[51]

In March 1981, 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.[52] The album was another Platinum success, reaching No. 10 and providing Taylor's final real hit single in a duet with J. D. Souther, "Her Town Too", which reached No. 5 on the Adult Contemporary chart and No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.


1981–1996: Troubled times and new beginnings

At Winterfest, 1985

Simon announced her separation from Taylor in September 1981 saying, "Our needs are different; it seem[s] impossible to stay together" and their divorce finalized in 1983.[53] Their breakup was highly publicized.[54] At the time, Taylor was living on West End Avenue in Manhattan and on a methadone maintenance program to cure him of his drug addiction.[55] Over the course of four months starting in September 1983, spurred on in part by the deaths of his friends John Belushi and Dennis Wilson and in part by the desire to be a better father to his children Sally and Ben, he discontinued methadone and overcame his heroin habit.[55]

Taylor had thoughts of retiring by the time he played the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985.[56] He 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.[57] "I had ... sort of bottomed-out in a drug habit, my marriage with Carly had dissolved, and I had basically been depressed and lost for a while", he recalled in 1995:


I sort of hit a low spot. I was asked to go down to Rio de Janeiro to play in this festival down there. We put the band together and went down and it was just an amazing response. I played to 300,000 people. They not only knew my music, they knew things about it and were interested in aspects of it that to that point had only interested me. To have that kind of validation right about then was really what I needed. It helped get me back on track.[58]

The song "Only a Dream in Rio" was written in tribute to that night, with lines like I was there that very day and my heart came back alive.[57] The October 1985 album, That's Why I'm Here, from which that song came, started a series of studio recordings that, while spaced further apart than his previous records, showed a more consistent level of quality and fewer covers, most notably the Buddy Holly song "Everyday", released as a single reached No. 61. On the album track "Only One", the backing vocals were performed by an all-star duo of Joni Mitchell and Don Henley.[59]

Taylor's next albums were partially successful; in 1988, he released Never Die Young, highlighted with the charting title track, and in 1991, the platinum New Moon Shine provided Taylor some popular songs with the melancholic "Copperline" and the upbeat "(I've Got to) Stop Thinkin' About That", both hit singles on Adult Contemporary radio. In the late 1980s, he began touring regularly, especially on the summer amphitheater circuit. His later concerts feature songs spanning his career and are marked by the musicianship of his band and backup singers. The 1993 two-disc Live album captures this, with a highlight being Arnold McCuller's descants in the codas of "Shower the People" and "I Will Follow". He provided a guest voice to The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer", and also appeared later on in the series when the family put together a jigsaw puzzle with his face as the missing final piece. In 1995, Taylor performed the role of the Lord in Randy Newman's Faust.

1997–present: Comeback

Taylor in concert at DeVos Hall, Grand Rapids, Michigan – April 2006

In 1997, after six years since his last studio album, Taylor released Hourglass, an introspective album that gave him the best critical reviews in almost twenty years. The album had much of its focus on Taylor's troubled past and family. "Jump Up Behind Me" paid tribute to his father's rescue of him after The Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill.[60] "Enough To Be on Your Way" was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade.[61] The themes were also inspired by Taylor and Walker's divorce, which took place in 1996.[62] Rolling Stone Magazine found that "one of the themes of this record is disbelief", while Taylor told the magazine that it was "spirituals for agnostics".[63] Critics embraced the dark themes on the album, and Hourglass was a commercial success, reaching No. 9 on the Billboard 200 (Taylor's first Top 10 album in sixteen years) and also provided a big adult contemporary hit on "Little More Time With You". The album also gave Taylor his first Grammy since JT, when he was honored with Best Pop Album in 1998.

Flanked by two greatest hit releases, Taylor's Platinum-certified October Road appeared in 2002 to a receptive audience. It featured a number of quiet instrumental accompaniments and passages. Overall, it found Taylor in a more peaceful frame of mind; rather than facing a crisis now, Taylor said in an interview that "I thought I'd passed the midpoint of my life when I was 17."[64] The album appeared in two versions, a single-disc version and a "limited edition" two-disc version which contained three extra songs including a duet with Mark Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia", which also appeared on Knopfler's album by the same name. Also in 2002, Taylor teamed with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss in singing "The Boxer" at the Kennedy Center Honors Tribute to Paul Simon. They later recorded the Louvin Brothers duet, "How's the World Treating You?" In 2004, after he chose not to renew his record contract with Columbia/Sony, he released James Taylor: A Christmas Album with distribution through Hallmark Cards.

Taylor performing at Tanglewood in 2008

Always visibly active in environmental and liberal causes, in October 2004, Taylor joined the Vote for Change tour playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org with the goal of mobilizing people to vote for John Kerry and against George W. Bush in that year's presidential campaign. Taylor's appearances were joint performances with the Dixie Chicks.

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. He also 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.

In December 2004, he appeared as himself in an episode of The West Wing entitled "A Change Is Gonna Come". He sang Sam Cooke's classic "A Change Is Gonna Come" at an event honoring an artist played by Taylor's wife Caroline. Later on, he appeared on CMT's Crossroads alongside the Dixie Chicks. In early 2006, MusiCares honored Taylor with performances of his songs by an array of notable musicians. Before a performance by the Dixie Chicks, lead singer Natalie Maines acknowledged that he had always been one of their musical heroes and had, for them, lived up to their once-imagined reputation of him.[65] They performed his song, "Shower the People", with a surprise appearance by Arnold McCuller, who has sung backing vocals on Taylor's live tours and albums for many years.

In the fall of 2006, Taylor released a repackaged and slightly different version of his Hallmark Christmas album, now entitled James Taylor at Christmas, and distributed by Columbia/Sony. In 2006, Taylor performed Randy Newman's song "Our Town" for the Disney animated film Cars. The song was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for the Best Original Song. On January 1, 2007, Taylor headlined the inaugural concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York honoring newly sworn in Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.

Taylor's next album, One Man Band was released on CD and DVD in November 2007 on Starbucks' Hear Music Label, where he joined with Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell. The introspective album grew out of a three-year tour of the United States and Europe called the One Man Band Tour, featuring some of Taylor's most beloved songs and anecdotes about their creative origins—accompanied solely by the "one man band" of his longtime pianist/keyboardist, Larry Goldings. The digital discrete 5.1 surround sound mix of One Man Band won a TEC Award for best surround sound recording in 2008.[66]

Taylor in April 2011

On November 28–30, 2007, Taylor accompanied by his original band and Carole King, headlined a series of six shows at the Troubadour. The appearances marked the 50th anniversary of the venue, where Taylor, King and many others, such as Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, and Elton John, performed early in their music careers. Proceeds from the concert went to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council, MusiCares, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, a member of America's Second Harvest, the nation's Food Bank Network. Parts of the performance shown on CBS Sunday Morning in the December 23, 2007, broadcast showed Taylor alluding to his early drug problems by saying, "I played here a number of times in the 70s, allegedly". Taylor has used versions of this joke on other occasions, and it appears as part of his One Man Band DVD and tour performances.

Taylor and Carole King performing "You've Got a Friend" together during their Troubadour Reunion Tour in 2010

In December 2007, James Taylor at Christmas was nominated for a Grammy Award. In January 2008, 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. The resulting live-in-studio album, named Covers, was released in September 2008.[67] The album forays into country and soul while being the latest proof that Taylor is a more versatile singer than his best-known hits might suggest. The Covers sessions stretched to include "Oh What a Beautiful Morning", from the musical Oklahoma!, a song that his grandmother had caught him singing over and over at the top of his lungs when he was seven years old.[68] Meanwhile, in summer 2008, Taylor and this band toured 34 North American cities with a tour entitled James Taylor and His Band of Legends. An additional album, called Other Covers, came out in April 2009, containing songs that were recorded during the same sessions as the original Covers but had not been put out to the full public yet.[69]

During October 19–21, 2008, Taylor performed a series of free concerts in five North Carolina cities in support of Barack Obama's presidential bid.[70][71] On Sunday, January 18, 2009, he performed at the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, singing "Shower the People" with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland.[72] On May 29, 2009, Taylor performed on the final episode of the original 17-year run of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

On September 8, 2009, Taylor made an appearance at the 24th-season premiere block party of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Chicago's Michigan Avenue.[73]

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.[74]

On January 1, 2010, Taylor sang the American national anthem at the NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park, while Daniel Powter sang the Canadian national anthem.[75]

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

Taylor at the October 16, 2011, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial dedication concert

In March 2010, he commenced the Troubadour Reunion Tour with Carole King and members of his original band, including Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, and Danny Kortchmar. They played shows in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and North America with the final night being at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California. The tour was a major commercial success and in some locations found Taylor playing arenas instead of his usual theaters or amphitheaters. Ticket sales amounted to over 700,000 and the tour grossed over $59 million. It was one of the most successful tours of the year.[76]

He 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".

On September 11, 2011, Taylor performed "You Can Close Your Eyes" in New York City at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

On November 22, 2011, Taylor performed "Fire and Rain" with Taylor Swift who was named after him,[77] at the last concert of her Speak Now World Tour in Madison Square Garden. They also sang Swift's song, "Fifteen". Then, on July 2, 2012 Swift appeared as Taylor's special guest in a concert at Tanglewood.[78]

He was active in support of Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign and opened the 2012 Democratic National Convention singing three songs. He performed "America the Beautiful" at the President's second inauguration.[79]

He appeared on the final of Star Académie, the Quebec version of American Idol, on April 13, 2009.

On April 24, 2013, Taylor performed at the memorial service for slain MIT police officer Sean Collier who was killed by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the men responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing.[80] 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".[81]


Early years

James Vernon Taylor was born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on March 12, 1948. His father, Isaac M. Taylor, worked as a resident physician at the hospital[5][6] and came from a wealthy Southern family.[5] Taylor is of English and Scottish descent, with the former being rooted in Massachusetts Bay Colony; his ancestors include Edmund Rice, an English colonist who co-founded Sudbury, Massachusetts.[7] His mother, Gertrude (née Woodard; 1921–2015), studied singing with Marie Sundelius at the New England Conservatory of Music and was an aspiring opera singer before she married Isaac in 1946.[5][8] Taylor is the younger brother of musician Alex Taylor (1947–1993) and the older brother of musicians Kate Taylor (born 1949) and Livingston Taylor (born 1950).[9] His youngest sibling, a brother named Hugh (born 1952), was also a musician; Hugh eventually left the music industry and has operated The Outermost Inn, a bed-and-breakfast in Aquinnah, Massachusetts, with his wife since 1989.[9][10]


In 1951, Taylor and his family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina,[11] when Isaac took a job as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.[12] They built a house in the Morgan Creek area off the present Morgan Creek Road, which was sparsely populated.[13] James later said, "Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people."[13] James attended a public primary school in Chapel Hill.[5] Isaac's career prospered, but he was frequently away from home on military service at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, or as part of Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica in 1955 and 1956.[14] Isaac Taylor later rose to become dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971.[15] Beginning in 1953, the Taylors spent summers on Martha's Vineyard.[16]


Taylor took cello lessons as a child in North Carolina, before learning the guitar in 1960.[17] His guitar style evolved, influenced by hymns, carols, and the music of Woody Guthrie, and his technique derived from his bass clef-oriented cello training and from experimenting on his sister Kate's keyboards: "My style was a finger-picking style that was meant to be like a piano, as if my thumb were my left hand, and my first, second, and third fingers were my right hand."[18] Spending summer holidays with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York.[19] The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together, and Kortchmar felt that Taylor's singing had a "natural sense of phrasing, every syllable beautifully in time. I knew James had that thing."[20] Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at 14, and he continued to learn the instrument effortlessly.[18] By the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch".[21]


In 1961, Taylor went to Milton Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Massachusetts. He faltered during his junior year, feeling uneasy in the high-pressure college prep environment despite having a good scholastic performance.[22] The Milton headmaster later said, "James was more sensitive and less goal-oriented than most students of his day."[23] He returned home to North Carolina to finish out the semester at Chapel Hill High School.[22] There he joined a band formed by his brother Alex called The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs), playing electric guitar; in 1964, they cut a single in Raleigh that featured James's song "Cha Cha Blues" on the B-side.[22] Having lost touch with his former school friends in North Carolina, Taylor returned to Milton for his senior year,[22] where he started applying to colleges to complete his education.[24] But he felt part of a "life that [he was] unable to lead", and he became depressed; he slept 20 hours each day, and his grades collapsed.[22][25] In late 1965 he committed himself to McLean, a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts,[22] where he was treated with chlorpromazine, and where the organized days began to give him a sense of time and structure.[23][25] As the Vietnam War escalated, Taylor received a psychological rejection from Selective Service System when he appeared before them with two white-suited McLean assistants and was uncommunicative.[26] Taylor earned a high school diploma in 1966 from the hospital's associated Arlington School.[26] He later viewed his nine-month stay at McLean as "a lifesaver... like a pardon or like a reprieve",[25] and both his brother Livingston and his sister Kate later were patients and students there as well.[23] As for his mental health struggles, Taylor thought of them as innate and said: "It's an inseparable part of my personality that I have these feelings."[24]


Career

1966–1969: Early career

At Kortchmar's urging, Taylor checked himself out of McLean and moved to New York City to form a band.[26] They recruited Joel O'Brien, formerly of Kortchmar's old band King Bees to play drums, and Taylor's childhood friend Zachary Wiesner (son of academic Jerome Wiesner) to play bass. After Taylor rejected the notion of naming the group after him, they called themselves the Flying Machine.[23][27] They played songs that Taylor had written at and about McLean, such as "Knocking 'Round the Zoo", "Don't Talk Now", and "The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream".[25][27] In some other songs, Taylor romanticized his life, but he was plagued by self-doubt.[28] By summer 1966, they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village, alongside acts such as the Turtles and Lothar and the Hand People.[29]


Taylor associated with a motley group of people and began using heroin, to Kortchmar's dismay.[23][29] In a late 1966 hasty recording session, the group cut a single, Taylor's "Night Owl", backed with his "Brighten Your Night with My Day".[30] Released on Jay Gee Records, a subsidiary of Jubilee Records, it received some radio airplay in the Northeast,[30] but only charted at No. 102 nationally.[31] Other songs had been recorded during the same session, but Jubilee declined to go forward with an album.[30] After a series of poorly-chosen appearances outside New York, culminating with a three-week stay at a failing nightspot in Freeport, Bahamas for which they were never paid, the Flying Machine broke up.[30] (A UK band with the same name emerged in 1969 with the hit song "Smile a Little Smile for Me". The New York band's recordings were later released in 1971 as James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine.)


Taylor would later say of this New York period, "I learned a lot about music and too much about drugs."[28] Indeed, his drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction during the final Flying Machine period: "I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get a drink."[30] He hung out in Washington Square Park, playing guitar to ward off depression and then passing out, letting runaways and criminals stay at his apartment.[32] Finally out of money and abandoned by his manager, he made a desperate call one night to his father. Isaac Taylor flew to New York and staged a rescue, renting a car and driving all night back to North Carolina with James and his possessions.[32] Taylor spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery; he also required a throat operation to fix vocal cords damaged from singing too harshly.[33]


Taylor decided to try being a solo act with a change of scenery. In late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London, living in various areas: Notting Hill, Belgravia, and Chelsea.[34] After recording some demos in Soho, his friend Kortchmar gave him his next big break. Kortchmar used his association with the King Bees (who once opened for Peter and Gordon), to connect Taylor to Peter Asher. Asher was A&R head for the Beatles' newly formed label Apple Records.[35] Taylor gave a demo tape of songs, including "Something in the Way She Moves", to Asher,[36] who then played the demo for Beatles Paul McCartney and George Harrison. McCartney remembers his first impression: "I just heard his voice and his guitar and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great.'"[35] Taylor became the first non-British act signed to Apple,[35] and he credits Asher for "opening the door" to his singing career.[36] Taylor said of Asher, who later became his manager, "I knew from the first time that we met that he was the right person to steer my career. He had this determination in his eye that I had never seen in anybody before."[37]: 70  Living chaotically in various places with various women, Taylor wrote additional material, including "Carolina in My Mind", and rehearsed with a new backing band.[38] 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.[38][39] McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on "Carolina in My Mind", whose lyric "holy host of others standing around me" referred to the Beatles, and the title phrase of Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the lyrical starting point for Harrison's classic "Something".[40][41] McCartney and Asher brought in arranger Richard Anthony Hewson to add both orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual "link" passages between them; they would receive a mixed reception, at best.[40][42]


James had been through so much by the time he was twenty that he had so much to express in his music. Other young artists of his age whom I worked with sang about how good or bad life was but really had no idea what they were singing about. James was already singing with the conviction of a singer much older than himself. Everything that he had already been through was evident in his songwriting.


—Peter Asher, Taylor's manager[37]: 66 

During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit by using heroin and methedrine.[40] He 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.[43] Meanwhile, Apple released his debut album, James Taylor, in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the US.[43] Critical reception was generally positive, including a complimentary review in Rolling Stone by Jon Landau, who said that "this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I've inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out."[42] The record's commercial potential suffered from Taylor's inability to promote it because of his hospitalization, and it sold poorly; "Carolina in My Mind" was released as a single but failed to chart in the UK and only reached No. 118 on the U.S. charts.[43]


In July 1969, Taylor headlined a six-night stand at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. On July 20, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival as the last act and was cheered by thousands of fans who stayed in the rain to hear him.[44][45] Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months.[46] However, while recovering, he continued to write songs and in October 1969 signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records.[46]


1970–1972: Fame and commercial success


Taylor in the early 1970s
Once he had recovered, Taylor moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer. In December 1969, he held the recording sessions for his second album there. Titled Sweet Baby James, and featuring the participation of Carole King, the album was released in February 1970 and was Taylor's critical and popular breakthrough, buoyed by the single "Fire and Rain", a song about both Taylor's experiences attempting to break his drug habit by undergoing treatment in psychiatric institutions and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr. Both the album and the single reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts, with Sweet Baby James selling more than 1.5 million copies in its first year[23] and eventually more than 3 million in the United States alone. 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. It earned several Grammy Award nominations including one for Album of the Year. It went on to be listed at No. 103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, with "Fire and Rain" listed as No. 227 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004.


During the time that Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. In October 1970, he performed with Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and the Canadian band Chilliwack at a Vancouver benefit concert that funded Greenpeace's protests of 1971 nuclear weapons tests by the US Atomic Energy Commission at Amchitka, Alaska; this performance was released in album format in 2009 as Amchitka, The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace. In January 1971, sessions for Taylor's next album began.


He appeared on The Johnny Cash Show, singing "Sweet Baby James", "Fire and Rain", and "Country Road", on February 17, 1971. His career success at this point and appeal to female fans of various ages piqued tremendous interest in him, prompting a March 1, 1971, Time magazine cover story of him as "the face of new rock".[23] It compared his strong-but-brooding persona to that of Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff and to The Sorrows of Young Werther, and said, "Taylor's use of elemental imagery—darkness and sunlight, references to roads traveled and untraveled, to fears spoken and left unsaid—reaches a level both of intimacy and controlled emotion rarely achieved in purely pop music."[23] One of the writers described his look as "a cowboy Jesus", to which Taylor later replied, "I thought I was trying to look like George Harrison."[47]


Released in April 1971, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon also gained critical acclaim and contained Taylor's biggest hit single in the US, a version of Carole King's new "You've Got a Friend" (featuring backing vocals by Joni Mitchell), which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late July. The follow-up single, "Long Ago and Far Away", also made the Top 40 and reached No. 4 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The album itself reached No. 2 on the album charts, which would be Taylor's highest position ever until the release of his 2015 album, Before This World, which went to No. 1 superseding Taylor Swift. In early 1972, Taylor won his first Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, for "You've Got a Friend"; King also won Song of the Year for the same song in that ceremony. The album went on to sell 2.5 million copies in the United States.


November 1972 heralded the release of Taylor's fourth album, One Man Dog. A concept album primarily recorded in his home recording studio, it featured a cameo by Linda Ronstadt along with Carole King, Carly Simon, and John McLaughlin. The album consisted of eighteen short pieces of music put together. Reception was generally lukewarm and, despite making the Top 10 of the Billboard Album Charts, its overall sales were disappointing. The lead single, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight", peaked at No. 14 on the Hot 100, and the follow-up, "One Man Parade", barely reached the Top 75. Almost simultaneously, Taylor married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon on November 3, in a small ceremony at her Murray Hill, Manhattan apartment.[48] A post-concert party following a Taylor performance at Radio City Music Hall turned into a large-scale wedding party, and the Simon-Taylor marriage would find much public attention over the following years.[48] They had two children, Sarah Maria "Sally" Taylor, born January 7, 1974, and Benjamin Simon "Ben" Taylor, born January 22, 1977.[49] During their marriage, the couple would guest on each other's albums and have two hit singles as duet partners: a cover of Inez & Charlie Foxx's "Mockingbird" and a cover of The Everly Brothers' "Devoted to You".


1973–1976: Career ups and downs

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. Walking Man was released in June and featured appearances of Paul and Linda McCartney and guitarist David Spinozza. The album was a critical and commercial disaster and was his first album to miss the Top 5 since his contract with Warner. It received poor reviews and sold only 300,000 copies in the United States. The title track failed to appear on the Top 100.


However, James Taylor's artistic fortunes spiked again in 1975 when the Gold album Gorilla reached No. 6 and provided one of his biggest hit singles, a cover version of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", featuring wife Carly on backing vocals and reached No. 5 in America and No. 1 in Canada. On the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the track also reached the top, and the follow-up single, the feelgood "Mexico", featuring a guest appearance by Crosby & Nash, also reached the Top 5 of that list. A well-received album, Gorilla showcased Taylor's electric, lighter side that was evident on Walking Man. However, it was arguably a more consistent and fresher-sounding Taylor, with songs such as "Mexico", "Wandering" and "Angry Blues". It also featured a song about his daughter Sally, "Sarah Maria".


Gorilla was followed in 1976 by In the Pocket, Taylor's last studio album to be released under Warner Bros. Records. The album found him with many colleagues and friends, including Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, and Stevie Wonder (who co-wrote a song with Taylor and contributed a harmonica solo). A melodic album, it was highlighted with the single "Shower the People", an enduring song that hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart and hit 22 on the Pop Charts. However, the album was not well received, reaching No. 16 and being criticized, particularly by Rolling Stone. Still, In The Pocket went on to be certified gold.


With the close of Taylor's contract with Warner, in November, the label released Greatest Hits, the album that comprised most of his best work between 1970 and 1976. With time, it became his best-selling album ever. It was certified 11× Platinum in the US, earned a Diamond certification by the RIAA, and eventually sold close to 20 million copies worldwide.


1977–1981: Move to Columbia and continued success

In 1977 Taylor signed with Columbia Records. Between March and April, he quickly recorded his first album for the label. JT, released that June, gave Taylor his best reviews since Sweet Baby James, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year in 1978. Peter Herbst of Rolling Stone was particularly favorable to the album, of which he wrote in its August 11, 1977 issue, "JT is the least stiff and by far the most various album Taylor has done. That's not meant to criticize Taylor's earlier efforts. ... But it's nice to hear him sounding so healthy."[50] JT reached No. 4 on the Billboard charts and sold more than 3 million copies in the United States alone. The album's Triple Platinum status ties it with Sweet Baby James as Taylor's all-time biggest-selling studio album. It was propelled by the successful cover of Jimmy Jones's and Otis Blackwell's "Handy Man", which hit No. 1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached No. 4 on the Hot 100, earning Taylor another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version. The song also topped the Canadian charts. The success of the album propelled the release of two further singles; the up-tempo pop "Your Smiling Face", an enduring live favorite, reached the American Top 20; however, "Honey Don't Leave L.A.", which Danny Kortchmar wrote and composed for Taylor, did not enjoy much success, reaching only No. 61.


Back in the forefront of popular music, Taylor guested with Paul Simon on Art Garfunkel's recording of a cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World", which reached the Top 20 in the U.S. and topped the AC charts in early 1978. After briefly working on Broadway, he took a one-year break, reappearing in the summer of 1979, with the cover-studded Platinum album titled Flag, featuring a Top 30 version of Gerry Goffin's and Carole King's "Up on the Roof". (Two selections from Flag, "Millworker" and "Brother Trucker" were featured on the PBS production of the Broadway musical based on Studs Terkel's non-fiction book Working, which Terkel himself hosted. Taylor himself appeared in that production as a trucker; he performed "Brother Trucker" in character.) Taylor also appeared on the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden, where he made a memorable live performance of "Mockingbird" with his wife Carly. The concert appeared on both the No Nukes album and film.


On December 7, 1980, Taylor had an encounter with Mark David Chapman who would murder John Lennon just one day later. Taylor told the BBC in 2010: "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon. And it was surreal to actually have contact with the guy 24 hours before he shot John." The next night, Taylor, who lived in a building next-door to Lennon, heard the assassination occur. Taylor commented: "I heard him shoot—five, just as quick as you could pull the trigger, about five explosions."[51]


In March 1981, 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.[52] The album was another Platinum success, reaching No. 10 and providing Taylor's final real hit single in a duet with J. D. Souther, "Her Town Too", which reached No. 5 on the Adult Contemporary chart and No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.


1981–1996: Troubled times and new beginnings


At Winterfest, 1985
Simon announced her separation from Taylor in September 1981 saying, "Our needs are different; it seem[s] impossible to stay together" and their divorce finalized in 1983.[53] Their breakup was highly publicized.[54] At the time, Taylor was living on West End Avenue in Manhattan and on a methadone maintenance program to cure him of his drug addiction.[55] Over the course of four months starting in September 1983, spurred on in part by the deaths of his friends John Belushi and Dennis Wilson and in part by the desire to be a better father to his children Sally and Ben, he discontinued methadone and overcame his heroin habit.[55]


Taylor had thoughts of retiring by the time he played the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985.[56] He 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.[57] "I had ... sort of bottomed-out in a drug habit, my marriage with Carly had dissolved, and I had basically been depressed and lost for a while", he recalled in 1995:


I sort of hit a low spot. I was asked to go down to Rio de Janeiro to play in this festival down there. We put the band together and went down and it was just an amazing response. I played to 300,000 people. They not only knew my music, they knew things about it and were interested in aspects of it that to that point had only interested me. To have that kind of validation right about then was really what I needed. It helped get me back on track.[58]


The song "Only a Dream in Rio" was written in tribute to that night, with lines like I was there that very day and my heart came back alive.[57] The October 1985 album, That's Why I'm Here, from which that song came, started a series of studio recordings that, while spaced further apart than his previous records, showed a more consistent level of quality and fewer covers, most notably the Buddy Holly song "Everyday", released as a single reached No. 61. On the album track "Only One", the backing vocals were performed by an all-star duo of Joni Mitchell and Don Henley.[59]


Taylor's next albums were partially successful; in 1988, he released Never Die Young, highlighted with the charting title track, and in 1991, the platinum New Moon Shine provided Taylor some popular songs with the melancholic "Copperline" and the upbeat "(I've Got to) Stop Thinkin' About That", both hit singles on Adult Contemporary radio. In the late 1980s, he began touring regularly, especially on the summer amphitheater circuit. His later concerts feature songs spanning his career and are marked by the musicianship of his band and backup singers. The 1993 two-disc Live album captures this, with a highlight being Arnold McCuller's descants in the codas of "Shower the People" and "I Will Follow". He provided a guest voice to The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer", and also appeared later on in the series when the family put together a jigsaw puzzle with his face as the missing final piece. In 1995, Taylor performed the role of the Lord in Randy Newman's Faust.


1997–present: Comeback


Taylor in concert at DeVos Hall, Grand Rapids, Michigan – April 2006
In 1997, after six years since his last studio album, Taylor released Hourglass, an introspective album that gave him the best critical reviews in almost twenty years. The album had much of its focus on Taylor's troubled past and family. "Jump Up Behind Me" paid tribute to his father's rescue of him after The Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill.[60] "Enough To Be on Your Way" was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade.[61] The themes were also inspired by Taylor and Walker's divorce, which took place in 1996.[62] Rolling Stone Magazine found that "one of the themes of this record is disbelief", while Taylor told the magazine that it was "spirituals for agnostics".[63] Critics embraced the dark themes on the album, and Hourglass was a commercial success, reaching No. 9 on the Billboard 200 (Taylor's first Top 10 album in sixteen years) and also provided a big adult contemporary hit on "Little More Time With You". The album also gave Taylor his first Grammy since JT, when he was honored with Best Pop Album in 1998.


Flanked by two greatest hit releases, Taylor's Platinum-certified October Road appeared in 2002 to a receptive audience. It featured a number of quiet instrumental accompaniments and passages. Overall, it found Taylor in a more peaceful frame of mind; rather than facing a crisis now, Taylor said in an interview that "I thought I'd passed the midpoint of my life when I was 17."[64] The album appeared in two versions, a single-disc version and a "limited edition" two-disc version which contained three extra songs including a duet with Mark Knopfler, "Sailing to Philadelphia", which also appeared on Knopfler's album by the same name. Also in 2002, Taylor teamed with bluegrass musician Alison Krauss in singing "The Boxer" at the Kennedy Center Honors Tribute to Paul Simon. They later recorded the Louvin Brothers duet, "How's the World Treating You?" In 2004, after he chose not to renew his record contract with Columbia/Sony, he released James Taylor: A Christmas Album with distribution through Hallmark Cards.




Taylor performing at Tanglewood in 2008
Always visibly active in environmental and liberal causes, in October 2004, Taylor joined the Vote for Change tour playing a series of concerts in American swing states. These concerts were organized by MoveOn.org with the goal of mobilizing people to vote for John Kerry and against George W. Bush in that year's presidential campaign. Taylor's appearances were joint performances with the Dixie Chicks.


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. He also 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.


In December 2004, he appeared as himself in an episode of The West Wing entitled "A Change Is Gonna Come". He sang Sam Cooke's classic "A Change Is Gonna Come" at an event honoring an artist played by Taylor's wife Caroline. Later on, he appeared on CMT's Crossroads alongside the Dixie Chicks. In early 2006, MusiCares honored Taylor with performances of his songs by an array of notable musicians. Before a performance by the Dixie Chicks, lead singer Natalie Maines acknowledged that he had always been one of their musical heroes and had, for them, lived up to their once-imagined reputation of him.[65] They performed his song, "Shower the People", with a surprise appearance by Arnold McCuller, who has sung backing vocals on Taylor's live tours and albums for many years.


In the fall of 2006, Taylor released a repackaged and slightly different version of his Hallmark Christmas album, now entitled James Taylor at Christmas, and distributed by Columbia/Sony. In 2006, Taylor performed Randy Newman's song "Our Town" for the Disney animated film Cars. The song was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for the Best Original Song. On January 1, 2007, Taylor headlined the inaugural concert at the Times Union Center in Albany, New York honoring newly sworn in Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer.


Taylor's next album, One Man Band was released on CD and DVD in November 2007 on Starbucks' Hear Music Label, where he joined with Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell. The introspective album grew out of a three-year tour of the United States and Europe called the One Man Band Tour, featuring some of Taylor's most beloved songs and anecdotes about their creative origins—accompanied solely by the "one man band" of his longtime pianist/keyboardist, Larry Goldings. The digital discrete 5.1 surround sound mix of One Man Band won a TEC Award for best surround sound recording in 2008.[66]




Taylor in April 2011

On November 28–30, 2007, Taylor accompanied by his original band and Carole King, headlined a series of six shows at the Troubadour. The appearances marked the 50th anniversary of the venue, where Taylor, King and many others, such as Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, and Elton John, performed early in their music careers. Proceeds from the concert went to benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council, MusiCares, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank, a member of America's Second Harvest, the nation's Food Bank Network. Parts of the performance shown on CBS Sunday Morning in the December 23, 2007, broadcast showed Taylor alluding to his early drug problems by saying, "I played here a number of times in the 70s, allegedly". Taylor has used versions of this joke on other occasions, and it appears as part of his One Man Band DVD and tour performances.




Taylor and Carole King performing "You've Got a Friend" together during their Troubadour Reunion Tour in 2010
In December 2007, James Taylor at Christmas was nominated for a Grammy Award. In January 2008, 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. The resulting live-in-studio album, named Covers, was released in September 2008.[67] The album forays into country and soul while being the latest proof that Taylor is a more versatile singer than his best-known hits might suggest. The Covers sessions stretched to include "Oh What a Beautiful Morning", from the musical Oklahoma!, a song that his grandmother had caught him singing over and over at the top of his lungs when he was seven years old.[68] Meanwhile, in summer 2008, Taylor and this band toured 34 North American cities with a tour entitled James Taylor and His Band of Legends. An additional album, called Other Covers, came out in April 2009, containing songs that were recorded during the same sessions as the original Covers but had not been put out to the full public yet.[69]


During October 19–21, 2008, Taylor performed a series of free concerts in five North Carolina cities in support of Barack Obama's presidential bid.[70][71] On Sunday, January 18, 2009, he performed at the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, singing "Shower the People" with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland.[72] On May 29, 2009, Taylor performed on the final episode of the original 17-year run of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.


On September 8, 2009, Taylor made an appearance at the 24th-season premiere block party of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Chicago's Michigan Avenue.[73]


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.[74]


On January 1, 2010, Taylor sang the American national anthem at the NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park, while Daniel Powter sang the Canadian national anthem.[75]


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




Taylor at the October 16, 2011, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial dedication concert
In March 2010, he commenced the Troubadour Reunion Tour with Carole King and members of his original band, including Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, and Danny Kortchmar. They played shows in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and North America with the final night being at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California. The tour was a major commercial success and in some locations found Taylor playing arenas instead of his usual theaters or amphitheaters. Ticket sales amounted to over 700,000 and the tour grossed over $59 million. It was one of the most successful tours of the year.[76]


He 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".


On September 11, 2011, Taylor performed "You Can Close Your Eyes" in New York City at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.


On November 22, 2011, Taylor performed "Fire and Rain" with Taylor Swift who was named after him,[77] at the last concert of her Speak Now World Tour in Madison Square Garden. They also sang Swift's song, "Fifteen". Then, on July 2, 2012 Swift appeared as Taylor's special guest in a concert at Tanglewood.[78]


He was active in support of Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign and opened the 2012 Democratic National Convention singing three songs. He performed "America the Beautiful" at the President's second inauguration.[79]


He appeared on the final of Star Académie, the Quebec version of American Idol, on April 13, 2009.


On April 24, 2013, Taylor performed at the memorial service for slain MIT police officer Sean Collier who was killed by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the men responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing.[80] 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".[81]




Kim and James Taylor in 2020
On September 6 and 7, 2013, he performed with the Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the Thirtieth Anniversary O.C. Tanner Gift of Music Gala Concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.[82] He called the choir "a national treasure"[83] 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.


After a 45-year wait, James earned his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with Before This World. 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 (on the March 14, 1970, list). The album launched atop the Billboard 200 with 97,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending June 21, 2015, according to Nielsen Music. Of its start, pure album sales were 96,000 copies sold, Taylor's best debut week for an album since 2002's October Road.[84]


Taylor cancelled his 2016 concert in Manila as a protest to the extrajudicial killings of suspects in the Philippine Drug War.[85]


Taylor's album American Standard was released on February 28, 2020. American Standard debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, making Taylor the first act to earn a top 10 album in each of the last six decades.[86] In May 2020, James Taylor and Jackson Browne rescheduled their 2020 tour dates to 2021 due to the COVID-19 crisis.[87] On November 24, 2020, the album was nominated for a Grammy in the category of "Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album".[88] 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.


Personal life


Taylor and Smedvig in September 2008
Taylor married singer Carly Simon in November 1972. Their children, Sally and Ben, are also musicians. They divorced in 1983. Taylor married actress Kathryn Walker at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on December 14, 1985.[89] She helped him get off heroin, but they divorced in 1996.[62]


In 1995, Taylor began dating Caroline "Kim" Smedvig, the director of public relations and marketing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.[90] They had met when he performed with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra.[90] They were married at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston on February 18, 2001. Part of their relationship was worked into the 2002 album October Road, specifically on the songs "On the 4th of July" and "Caroline I See You".[91] Following the birth of their twin sons Rufus and Henry in April 2001,[90][92] they settled in Lenox, Massachusetts.[93]


Awards and recognition

Grammy Awards
1972: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "You've Got a Friend"
1977: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Handy Man"
1998: Best Pop Album, Hourglass
2001: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight"
2003: Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, "How's the World Treating You" with Alison Krauss
2006: Grammy Award-sponsored MusiCares Person of the Year. At a black tie ceremony held in Los Angeles, musicians from several eras paid tribute to Taylor by performing his songs, often prefacing them with remarks on his influence on their decisions to become musicians. Artists include Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Taj Mahal, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Sheryl Crow, India.Arie, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and Keith Urban. Paul Simon performed as well, although he was not included in the televised program; Taylor's brother Livingston appeared on stage as a "backup singer" for the finale, along with Taylor's twin boys, Rufus and Henry.
2021: Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, American Standard

Other recognition


James Taylor Bridge, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
1995: Honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, 1995.
2000: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2000.
2000: Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2000.
2003: The Chapel Hill Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Taylor. At the same occasion the US-15-501 highway bridge over Morgan Creek, near the site of the Taylor family home and mentioned in Taylor's song "Copperline", was named in honor of Taylor.
2004: George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.[94]
2004: Ranked 84th in Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[95]
2009: Honorary Doctorate of Music from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
2009: Inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.[96]
2010: Inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame
2012: Received the Montréal Jazz Spirit Award
2012: Named "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the Ministry of Culture & Communication of France.[97]
2014: Emmy Award for The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Presents an Evening with James Taylor[98]
2015: Presidential Medal of Freedom[99]
2016: Kennedy Center Honors

Discography


Studio albums
James Taylor (1968)
Sweet Baby James (1970)
Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971)
One Man Dog (1972)
Walking Man (1974)
Gorilla (1975)
In the Pocket (1976)
JT (1977)
Flag (1979)
Dad Loves His Work (1981)
That's Why I'm Here (1985)
Never Die Young (1988)
New Moon Shine (1991)
Hourglass (1997)
October Road (2002)
A Christmas Album (2004)
James Taylor at Christmas (2006)
Covers (2008)
Before This World (2015)
American Standard (2020)[100]


Taylor performing with Vince Gill (right) and Amy Grant (left) at Tanglewood in 2011

Kim and James Taylor in 2020

On September 6 and 7, 2013, he performed with the Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the Thirtieth Anniversary O.C. Tanner Gift of Music Gala Concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.[82] He called the choir "a national treasure"[83] 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.

After a 45-year wait, James earned his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with Before This World. 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 (on the March 14, 1970, list). The album launched atop the Billboard 200 with 97,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending June 21, 2015, according to Nielsen Music. Of its start, pure album sales were 96,000 copies sold, Taylor's best debut week for an album since 2002's October Road.[84]

Taylor cancelled his 2016 concert in Manila as a protest to the extrajudicial killings of suspects in the Philippine Drug War.[85]

Taylor's album American Standard was released on February 28, 2020. American Standard debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, making Taylor the first act to earn a top 10 album in each of the last six decades.[86] In May 2020, James Taylor and Jackson Browne rescheduled their 2020 tour dates to 2021 due to the COVID-19 crisis.[87] On November 24, 2020, the album was nominated for a Grammy in the category of "Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album".[88] 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.
Personal life[edit]

Taylor and Smedvig in September 2008

Taylor married singer Carly Simon in November 1972. Their children, Sally and Ben, are also musicians. They divorced in 1983. Taylor married actress Kathryn Walker at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on December 14, 1985.[89] She helped him get off heroin, but they divorced in 1996.[62]

In 1995, Taylor began dating Caroline "Kim" Smedvig, the director of public relations and marketing for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.[90] They had met when he performed with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra.[90] They were married at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston on February 18, 2001. Part of their relationship was worked into the 2002 album October Road, specifically on the songs "On the 4th of July" and "Caroline I See You".[91] Following the birth of their twin sons Rufus and Henry in April 2001,[90][92] they settled in Lenox, Massachusetts.[93]
Awards and recognition[edit]
Grammy Awards[edit]
1972: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "You've Got a Friend"
1977: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Handy Man"
1998: Best Pop Album, Hourglass
2001: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight"
2003: Best Country Collaboration With Vocals, "How's the World Treating You" with Alison Krauss
2006: Grammy Award-sponsored MusiCares Person of the Year. At a black tie ceremony held in Los Angeles, musicians from several eras paid tribute to Taylor by performing his songs, often prefacing them with remarks on his influence on their decisions to become musicians. Artists include Carole King, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Taj Mahal, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Sheryl Crow, India.Arie, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, and Keith Urban. Paul Simon performed as well, although he was not included in the televised program; Taylor's brother Livingston appeared on stage as a "backup singer" for the finale, along with Taylor's twin boys, Rufus and Henry.
2021: Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, American Standard
Other recognition[edit]

James Taylor Bridge, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
1995: Honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, 1995.
2000: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2000.
2000: Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2000.
2003: The Chapel Hill Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Taylor. At the same occasion the US-15-501 highway bridge over Morgan Creek, near the site of the Taylor family home and mentioned in Taylor's song "Copperline", was named in honor of Taylor.
2004: George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing.[94]
2004: Ranked 84th in Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[95]
2009: Honorary Doctorate of Music from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
2009: Inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.[96]
2010: Inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame
2012: Received the Montréal Jazz Spirit Award
2012: Named "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the Ministry of Culture & Communication of France.[97]
2014: Emmy Award for The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Presents an Evening with James Taylor[98]
2015: Presidential Medal of Freedom[99]
2016: Kennedy Center Honors


Discography[edit]
Main article: James Taylor discography
Studio albums[edit]

James Taylor (1968)
Sweet Baby James (1970)
Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon (1971)
One Man Dog (1972)
Walking Man (1974)
Gorilla (1975)
In the Pocket (1976)
JT (1977)
Flag (1979)
Dad Loves His Work (1981)
That's Why I'm Here (1985)
Never Die Young (1988)
New Moon Shine (1991)
Hourglass (1997)
October Road (2002)
A Christmas Album (2004)
James Taylor at Christmas (2006)
Covers (2008)
Before This World (2015)
American Standard (2020)[100]

Taylor performing with Vince Gill (right) and Amy Grant (left) at Tanglewood in 2011

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Taylor

Artist: The Sweeplings

The Sweeplings are an American pop–folk duo comprising singer-songwriters Cami Bradley and Whitney Dean. The two musicians met in 2014 after Dean's wife saw Bradley perform during an episode of America's Got Talent and suggested that her husband should write music with Bradley. Their first meeting resulted in eight songs co-written over the course of a weekend, and their debut, self-titled EP.

The Sweeplings followed with their debut full-length album Rise & Fall in 2015 and Covers, Ch. 1 in 2016. Also in 2016, the EP Winter's Call was released; the Sweeplings joined Nettwerk in 2017 for their third EP, Sleepwalking. Their first full-length album with Nettwerk was scheduled for fall 2018, but was placed on hold while the group worked out some creative differences. Losing Ground Vol. 1 was released in March 2020, accompanied by two music videos; volume two was released in September.





Background

Cami Bradley is a singer-songwriter and musician from Spokane, Washington. Born into a musical family, Bradley showed an aptitude for music at age four, was writing her own songs by age ten,[1] and released solo albums in 2009 and 2013.[2] She was scouted in 2013 by producers of America's Got Talent, who sent her to audition for its eighth season,[1] during which she gained praise and notoriety for her stripped-down performances of popular songs like "Believe".[3] She finished the season in sixth place.[4]

Whitney Dean is a singer-songwriter and musician from Huntsville, Alabama. Dean is the son of a voice and piano teacher,[5] and he and his brother Bradley comprised one-half of the local band Firewood.[6] Whitney Dean has written music for artists in Nashville, Tennessee;[7] he toured with John Paul White for two years on lead guitar and background vocals,[7][8] doubling as road and production manager to earn college credits.[9]
Formation[edit]

After Dean and his wife watched a Bradley performance on America's Got Talent, Bethany Dean said her husband and Bradley should write music together.[10] Bradley declined on first contact but Dean's wife persisted; the two musicians began collaborating via Skype a few months later.[11] In 2014, the Deans were invited by the Bradleys to visit their home in Spokane,[7] and the weekend meeting was both pleasant and productive,[12] resulting in eight songs.[7]

The name 'Sweeplings'—denoting a small grouping that writes sweeping melodies—was chosen by Bethany Dean, and was originally her title for a project by her husband before Cami Bradley joined.[5]
Career[edit]

A self-titled, four-song EP was released in September 2014, but the new duo did little promotion at first, because Bradley did not want her fans to be confused if the pairing did not work out. Instead, she released videos of cover songs as a solo artist.[7]

In August 2015, the Sweeplings released their first full-length album, Rise & Fall, on their own label. NPR had premiered the song "Carry Me Home" the month before,[13] and iTunes later placed the song on its list of the 25 best singer-songwriter tracks of 2015.[11]

In February 2016, Billboard premiered the video for "Under Your Spell", which Dean called "a classic tale of good and evil" and the struggle with life's choices.[14] The Sweeplings' second album, Covers, Ch. 1, was released in July 2016;[15] the video for their reimagining of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" was released in November.[16] Also in November, the duo presented their four-song EP Winter's Call.[17]

Upon signing with Nettwerk Music Group in 2017, the Sweeplings offered a deluxe version of Rise & Fall, including an alternate version of "Hold Me" and two songs that didn't make the original cut. The duo's third EP, Sleepwalking, was released via Nettwerk in August, featuring six songs.[18] A Christmas EP, Merrier Days, followed in November.[19]

The Sweeplings ([l–r]: Whitney Dean, Cami Bradley) performing live at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood in 2018.

The duo had planned to release a full-length album via Nettwerk in 2018; after two weeks' work, "some tragedy, some loss, some internal struggle" led to difficulties in finding their vision, and they decided to take some time off. Seven months later, they chose to scale back to piano, guitar and vocals. Their EP Losing Ground was released in two volumes; the first in March 2020,[20] and the second in September.[21] Each volume features seven songs.

Also in 2020, The Sweeplings uploaded numerous official music videos to their YouTube channel, including "In Between" in January,[22] "Bleed Me White" in March,[23] and "I Won't Go" in August.[24] Another song, "You Find Me", was added to Apple Music's singer-songwriter playlist 'Acoustic Chill'.[25]

Since the Sweeplings write and communicate via email and Skype, they often travel across the country to finish their efforts.[5] The Bradleys bought a small second home in Huntsville, Alabama, to facilitate the band's career; the home search was featured on a 2016 episode of Tiny House Hunting.[26]
Critical reception[edit]

iTunes' staff wrote that the Sweeplings' music reveals "a penchant for haunting, tender harmonies and a roots-inspired sound that bears similarities to The Civil Wars."[27] PopDust called Rise & Fall "a potent collection of narratives with gut-wrenching textures built on a foundation of powerful harmonies and sharp musicianship."[28] The Birmingham News called it "an uncommonly focused, polished and big-stage-ready debut from an independent band".[11] Elmore Magazine said the album's songs tend to "blend together because of similar sounds, but the chemistry is concise and makes the album whole, not all over the place like many debuts seem to be."[29]

Atwood Magazine called Sleepwalking "haunting, bittersweet and altogether mesmerizing ... when The Sweeplings evoke hurt, we feel a shred of resilience ... Darkness comes with a bit of light, and vice versa."[30] Of Losing Ground Vol. 1, PopMatters wrote, "The Sweeplings might make the most gorgeous music by a folk-pop duo since the unfortunate demise of the Civil Wars".[20] "Bleed Me White" earned raves from American Songwriter, which called it "the definition of a duet and pedestals itself on perfectly balanced vocal harmonies and pulsing piano, textured with light strings. It is elegance in simplicity at its finest."[20]
Other appearances[edit]

The Sweeplings' songs have appeared in official promotional videos and television series. "In Too Deep" was used for the winter premiere of the ABC Family (later Freeform) drama The Fosters;[31] the duo later performed the song on an episode of the show and appeared on Freeform's first Facebook Live musical performance. Freeform also used "In Too Deep" for the season finale of Pretty Little Liars in 2016.[32]

The official trailer for the final season of the Netflix series Longmire was set to "Carry Me Home".[33] The Vampire Diaries and Good Behavior also have featured the Sweeplings' music.[18]


Discography/Albums:

The Sweeplings (EP, 2014)
Rise & Fall (2015)
Covers, Ch. 1 (2016)
Winter's Call (EP, 2016)
Rise & Fall (Deluxe Edition) (2017)[34]
Merrier Days (EP, 2017)
Sleepwalking (EP, 2017)
Losing Ground Vol. 1 (EP, 2020)
Losing Ground Vol. 2 (EP, 2020)
Singles/Videos[edit]
"Snow May Be Falling" (2014)
"Cannonball" (2015)
"Carry Me Home" (2015)
"In Too Deep" (2016)
"Hold Tight" (2016)
"What We Once Were" (2016)
"Fool" (2017)
"Losing You" (2017)
"Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" (2018)
"In Between" (2020)[22]
"Bleed Me White" (2020)[23]
"Shake the Dust" (2020)[35]
"Running" (2020)[36]
"Deep & Wild" (2020)[37]
"I Won't Go" (2020)[24]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sweeplings

The best internet radio stations

There’s nothing more convenient than opening Spotify or Apple Music, launching your favorite playlist, and sinking back into the driver’s seat as you cruise to work. But where’s the human element in streaming media? Sure, the playlists themselves are shareable and curated, but there’s something unbeatable about the familiar jargon, jokes, and repeatable bumpers of internet radio stations and their respective DJs. Call us nostalgic. We can take it.

If you’re looking to keep up with the latest musical trends from coast to coast and the world over, your best bet is to use an internet radio station. You might not be sure which one you should listen to, but luckily, we do. This franken-hacked NES Power Glove instrument/robot is amazing.

Best internet radio stations at a glance

KCMP 89.3 FM — Minneapolis

WMOT 89.5 FM — Nashville

KCRW 89.9 FM — Santa Monica, California

WWPR 105.1 FM — New York

XRAY.fm KXRY 107.1 FM — Portland, Oregon

Dublab — Los Angeles

KUTX 98.9 FM — Austin, Texas

WFMU 91.1 FM — Jersey City, New Jersey

BBC Radio 6 — United Kingdom

WWOZ 90.7 FM — New Orleans

WQXR 105.9 FM — New York

KUSF 90.3 FM — San Francisco

Radio Free Brooklyn — Brooklyn, New York

NTS Radio — London

Radio Musical De Cuba — Havana

Cinemix — Seattle

BBC World Service

KEXP 90.3 FM — Seattle, Washington

Seattle’s best public radio station, a partnership between the University of Washington and Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project, highlights the best new alternative music from around the globe. Best known for its live studio sessions, KEXP is often among the first major media outlets to showcase up-and-coming bands, making it a great place to hear new music before all of your Spotify-loving friends.

ANDROID IOS

KCMP 89.3FM — Minneapolis

Owned and operated by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), The Current is an adult-alternative haven for all things indie and local in the Minneapolis area. Curated by over a dozen DJs, you’ll hear everything from dirty shoegaze and surf rock to experimental R&B. Various segments intermix with music cuts, including interviews, book and movie call-outs, and livestreamed concerts.

IOS ANDROID

WMOT 89.5FM — Nashville

Undergoing several format changes for the duration of its call-sign, WMOT 89.5FM is tried-and-true Nashville, broadcasting an array of listener-powered roots, Americana, and bluegrass music. Current programs include the nationally-syndicated Hangin’ and Sangin’, The String, and Bel-Air Drive. If you’re looking to get an authentic taste of the city that gave music its heart and soul, look no further.

ANDROID IOS

KCRW 89.9 FM — Santa Monica, California

An NPR member station based out of the Santa Monica College campus, KCRW was founded in 1945 to train ex-servicemen in the then-emerging technology of radio. Now, it’s just a great place to find emerging music. Creators of the famed Morning Becomes Eclectic radio program, a show that highlights new music and live performances from talented indie artists, KCRW is an excellent place to hear well-curated musical selections, as well as to catch up on national news.

IOS ANDROID

WWPR 105.1 FM — New York

Grace your ears with the latest bars featured by Power 105.1, one of the top hip-hop stations in the city that birthed the very genre. Power 105 is genuinely urban. The daily spin features a heavy focus on both mainstream and underground hip-hop and R&B with a splash of Latin and reggae crossover. It’s also home to several talk segments, but none bigger than the Charlamagne-hosted Breakfast Club, one of the culture’s most influential (and controversial) talk radio shows.

IHEART IOS ANDROID

XRAY.fm KXRY 107.1 FM — Portland, Oregon

Portland’s most acclaimed independent radio station serves up the sounds of the city’s popular underground music scene to a global audience. A crowdfunded station formed in 2012, XRAY offers a varied selection of music and progressive talk radio programming and has been broadcasting around the clock for years now thanks to the help of nearly 70 part-time DJs.

IOS

Dublab — Los Angeles

Dublab is an internet-only broadcast that showcases the cutting edge of the DJ universe five days a week. The station also offers each live show for download via its website. With a rotating cast of all-star DJs that includes world-renowned heavyweights like Daedelus, Teebs, Flying Lotus, and more, Dublab is among the best streams on earth for fans of emerging beat music.

IOS ANDROID

KUTX 98.9 FM — Austin, Texas

Owned and operated by the University of Texas in Austin, KUTX showcases a range of genre-specific programming, from indie and pop to disco, Latin, and other genres. It’s an eclectic mix of shows, but they are each extremely vibrant and well-curated, making it an excellent place to find something new and unexpected.

ANDROID IOS

WFMU 91.1 FM — Jersey City, New Jersey

WFMU is the granddaddy of them all. The longest-running independent radio station in the U.S. is also one of the best internet radio stations on the web. This listener-funded station offers a free-form variety of eclectic shows that are sure to provide something for everyone. Such free-form formatting can be a blessing and a curse, as some hours will prod listeners to tune in elsewhere.

IOS ANDROID

BBC Radio 6 — United Kingdom

When it launched in 2002, BBC Radio 6 became the first new station created by the BBC in more than three decades. A digital-only channel that focuses on alternative music from all over the globe, Radio 6 plays everything from guitar music to dance, jazz, and soul cuts. Unfortunately, the BBC’s mobile apps are only available for those living within U.K. shores, but everyone else can just as well head to the website for a listen.

U.K. only: IOS ANDROID

WWOZ 90.7 FM — New Orleans

For those who aren’t lucky enough to live in the Big Easy, WWOZ offers up the sounds of its fair city to the world, showcasing New Orleans’ famed jazz, soul, bounce, and R&B each day. The station’s selections center largely around the jazz tradition — which is still alive and well in the city — providing an amazing look inside one of the world’s most interesting and storied sonic universes.

IOS ANDROID BLACKBERRY

WQXR 105.9 FM — New York

Among the finest — and most-listened-to — classical radio stations in the world, New York’s WQXR is also one of the oldest FM stations in the world. It’s among the best internet radio stations as well. Showcasing the best of composers new and old, it’s an excellent place to tune into when looking for some serious music for work or study. It’s also the perfect pairing for that nice bottle of red wine you have stashed away.

IOS ANDROID

KUSF 90.3 FM — San Francisco

The extremely varied sounds of the Bay Area are best explored on KUSF, the University of San Francisco’s radio station. A glimpse of the region that delves deep into the complex communities that have thrived there for decades, KUSF’s programming is overtly Californian, providing listeners with warm-weather jams they’ll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

IOS

Radio Free Brooklyn — Brooklyn, New York

A community radio station that’s run out of the basement of a bike shop in (you guessed it) Brooklyn, New York, Radio Free Brooklyn offers interesting independent programming, with a variety of interesting talk and music shows to take you through your day the Brooklyn way.

IOS ANDROID

NTS Radio — London

Founded in 2011 by Boiler Room co-creator Femi Adeyemi, NTS Radio offers a massively diverse selection of live and prerecorded music, in a variety of genres, that is often curated by some of the most influential artists in the world. More than 200 hosts regularly appear on the station, whose slogan is “Don’t Assume.” Famed artists who have curated content for NTS Radio include Thurston Moore, Gilles Peterson, Peanut Butter Wolf, Floating Points, and more.

IOS ANDROID

Radio Musical De Cuba — Havana

There’s nothing more fun and energizing than the sounds of Cuban music, and there is no better place to hear it than Radio Musical De Cuba, a Havana-based station featuring an assortment of constantly streaming Cuban sounds. Grab a cigar and a glass of rum, and prepare to enjoy the sounds of one of the world’s most interesting musical cultures.

CMBF

Cinemix

Cinemix is an all-soundtrack station that exclusively plays songs from film and television. A listener-supported station that broadcasts from Toronto, the station highlights the excellent works of iconic film composers like John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and more.

IOS ANDROID WINDOWS

BBC World Service

The BBC’s worldwide arm provides up-to-date coverage of notable events around the globe, as well as interesting interviews, travel, and sports segments. Fans of global politics will love the matter-of-fact way in which the BBC covers those topics.

IOS ANDROID

Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/music/best-internet-radio-stations/

My Honorable Mentions:

1- NPR National Public Radio: News, Music, Podcasts... at https://www.npr.org/
2- WNYC Radio: Local NPR station: News, Music, Podcasts...at https://www.wnyc.org/
3- Soft Tracks Radio: Adult lite rock radio...at https://www.soft-tracks.com/
4- Lite 106.7 FM Radio: Adult lite hits radio....at https://www.iheart.com/live/1067-lite-fm-1477/
5- Beatles Radio: songs from the Beatles & solo...at https://www.beatlesradio.com/
6- Beatles at 181FM: songs from the Beatles & solo...at https://tunein.com/radio/181FM-Beatles-s113658/
7- Beatles on iHeart Radio: songs from the Beatles & solo...at https://www.iheart.com/artist/the-beatles-591/
8- Classic Rock hits on iHeart Radio: at...https://www.iheart.com/live/the-classic-rock-channel-4426/
9- The Vinyl Experience on iHeart radio: songs that changed the world...at https://www.iheart.com/live/the-vinyl-experience-6878/
10- Singers & Songwriters on Pandora: pop hits...at https://www.pandora.com/station/play/4696058135796382025
11- Country Songwriters on Pandora: Country songwriters at: https://www.pandora.com/station/play/2711313674583113124
12- WSUS Sussex NJ radio: Adult lite 80's+ hits radio...at https://www.iheart.com/live/1023-wsus-1377/

In a Crisis, Radio Should Be Bigger Than Ever — So Why Isn’t It?

04-21-20 - Terrestrial music stations have a major cultural opportunity right now, but employees say a muddied strategy is standing in the way.

Radio personality Kevin Ryder was “baffled” by KROQ’s “cold, heartless attitude” when he and his morning-show team were fired at the end of March. The station has long been an alternative/rock staple in Los Angeles, the second-largest market in the country, and Ryder had been on the air for more than 30 years.

“The new people in charge now weren’t here for the building of the world-famous KROQ,” Ryder, one-half of the popular Kevin & Bean Show, said on air when the station let him go, live one final time. “I don’t think it means anything to them. It’s a numbers business, and there’s no family aspect to it anymore. It’s only numbers, but this place was built without numbers. It was musicians, artists, and the special relationship between music, the station, and our fans.”

AM/FM radio provides localized, round-the-clock information and entertainment via friendly neighborhood voices — so in theory, it’s the perfect platform in a global crisis that forces hundreds of millions of people to stay home. But Ryder is one of many in the radio community — including on-air hosts, music directors, program directors — who have been shocked by sudden job losses in recent weeks as COVID-19 has spread across the U.S., and news out of the industry has been one bad thing after another. Why is terrestrial radio missing the opportunity here — and how should it be fighting to get back on top?

The familiarity gap

In response to the pandemic’s shutdown of live events and many other industries across the U.S., leading radio conglomerates iHeartMedia and Entercom (which owns KROQ) announced widespread firings and furloughs.

Multiple sources who either currently work or recently worked in radio told Rolling Stone they believe the KROQ firings were a branding face-lift a long time coming. KROQ has long been looked at as a relative anomaly in the alternative-radio format: “It was almost its own format with a sound that leaned more rock and didn’t match the current pop/hip-hop-leaning landscape,” one radio industry employee says. “Now, it’s basically just flipping to match every other alternative station, which is what Entercom wanted and Kevin Weatherly [the former program director, who left Entercom in February for Spotify] seemed to be protecting it from.

Entercom’s CEO, David Field, tells Rolling Stone those firings were indeed unrelated to the coronavirus — and that local decisions are made by local management depending on how programs perform. “The ratings on the show post-Bean [Gene “Bean” Baxter left the show last year] were not where they needed to be, so the decision was made locally that it was time for change, and time to rebuild a new show that would hopefully garner higher ratings,” Field says.

But the timing of many of these company cuts — which Field admits was unfortunate in the case of KROQ — may be rattling audiences’ familiarity and contributing to radio’s shakiness. “I was really looking forward to your show during these uncertain times to help keep me grounded and to help ease my anxiety for a few hours each day,” one of Ryder’s fans wrote on Twitter. “What brilliant timing!” another tweeted. “Who wants to hear a familiar voice on the radio during a pandemic?!? Idiotic.”

Bay Area radio figure Aaron Axelsen was told to leave his position as music director and on-air personality at San Francisco’s Alt 105.3 after 23 years with the station. “My termination was based 100 percent on the COVID-19 budget cutbacks,” he says. “This just kind of comes with the territory, though. That’s the nature of the game, and we understand and accept that going into it.”

Axelsen says there comes a point when heritage personalities need to move aside, be grateful for their run, and make room for future talent and fresh perspectives. “Sometimes it’s necessary to reinvent,” he says. “Any time you’re going to get rid of a heritage personality, it’s always gonna be met with resistance. [But] there is the importance of radio personalities in a time of crisis — when your audience is looking for comfort. It takes a while to brand and develop new personalities. It can take years to build up the trust that people have with these long-running personalities in their markets, so I think the timing’s really unfortunate.”

While music fans faced with a sprawling field of streaming options may not need music radio, many in the radio community would argue that they do still need their DJs. “You can hear your songs everywhere, but these personalities that you listen to and grow up with can be the calming, soothing voice to help you feel better, escape, or give you information and news,” says Keith Dakin, the vice president of programming for a smaller radio company that owns about 14 stations on the East Coast. “I 100 percent believe that. It’s who you want to turn to in times of crisis. I grew up in the Eighties. When there was news, I wanted Tom Brokaw to tell me the news, because I grew up with Tom Brokaw. These people become your friends. We do perceptual studies and research studies, and people say, ‘Oh, they’re like my family. They’re like my co-workers.’ Making changes now is bad for your brand, because your listeners are used to these DJs and they’re looking for the DJs they love.”

Where is the flexibility?

Radio reaches more than 90 percent of the U.S. population, according to Nielsen, but the definition of “reach” is murky: The metric doesn’t account for passive background exposure, and it isn’t broken up to illustrate the amount of active engagement. According to Edison Research, AM/FM radio listenership was down 5 percent from 2017 to 2019, when it came to audio sources used most often in the car — while usage of SiriusXM, online platforms like streaming, and podcasts had all increased.

Revenue for terrestrial radio advertising has decreased every year since 2015, per research out of PwC, suggesting that the medium as a whole has become less significant to the general public. (Radio companies have also been on shaky financial ground for a while: the 850-station iHeartMedia, for example, filed for bankruptcy in 2018 as part of an attempt to restructure and reduce its billions in debt, then announced mass layoffs in more “reorganization” last year.)

But what if radio could pivot away from background listening and toward a more situation-based format, engaging listeners on whatever’s relevant at that particular moment? Terrestrial radio has the unique ability to freewheel — so insiders say DJs should be allowed to change course at a moment’s notice to best serve their communities. Radio personalities are able to get updates while they’re live on the air, which is not possible with prerecorded satellite radio shows or podcasts. These personalities have the advantage of being able to adjust with agility and express real emotion as it bubbles up.

“People are gravitating towards things that feel familiar because there is so much comfort in that. But that’s not enough — it depends on what they’re saying!” says Alex Gervasi, a popular radio personality who had spent 10 years at iHeartMedia, and six of those at KIIS in L.A., before being let go as part of the massive iHeart layoffs in December. “We’re witnessing another culture shift away from things and people that are superficial and towards those who are authentic and self-aware. It’s not enough to be just positive and upbeat anymore. Are you being vulnerable? Are you listening to the pulse of your community and the people in your community that might have struggles that look different than yours? You’ll have a hard time connecting if you aren’t listening first.”

“Now’s the time to experiment,” Dakin adds. “All of our stations are playing way less commercials because there’s not as much advertising right now. I’m playing all ‘songs that you can sing along to’ at five o’clock on my AC station. One of our stations on Long Island is [providing] fake ‘live’ concerts, since there aren’t concerts anymore — so it’s tracks from the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers’ live albums. We’re doing zanier stuff. And I’m gonna have my afternoon guy on Star talk about news, when he usually talks about Lady Gaga’s new song. On all of our stations we put news updates at the top of every hour.”

In the specific time of COVID-19, new updates from government leaders and health officials barrel in by the hour — so radio becomes an even more vital medium for communicating all that. “The average person has no idea if they legally have to wear a mask or not,” says KROQ’s former morning-show producer Jay “Lightning” Tilles, who left radio altogether in 2018 after 27 years at the station. “This would be a time that I would want my DJ to say, ‘Hey, just FYI, here’s what the mayor said,’ and then have a debate about it. I’m not saying that’s not a conversation that’s happening, but it [previously] would have been happening through every morning host. They would have all been talking about it.” Dakin, too, recalls DJs pivoting to 24/7 news channels during previous moments of a national crisis, like Sandy Hook and Hurricane Sandy.

The importance of the local

Radio started shifting from local to national years ago: In smaller markets, you might still have a local DJ who covers the opening of a neighborhood restaurant or a hospital in need of supplies, but the larger markets like L.A., New York, and Chicago have become hubs of syndication. “They wanted to be everything to everyone,” says Tilles.

“The one major advantage [terrestrial] radio has is that it can be hyper-local,” he points out. “They can talk about the opening of a shoebox on the corner of La Crescenta, and they have the agility to do that. They can broadcast from out of their car, as many of the DJs used to do when cell phones were invented. That’s not happening anymore, and you’ve noticed it as a listener.”

Moreover, when a station personality is told to represent multiple markets, that can make it harder for the station to solidify its own identity. And, on a broader scale, it makes it harder for the medium to stand out from satellite radio — a platform that was made so that anyone anywhere could access the same stations — or the Spotifys and Pandoras of the world. Homogenization can occur through the content that’s presented and the music that’s played.

“I always made a point, when I was on the air, to talk about growing up in the East Bay or going to this [nearby] club or taco shop,” Axelsen says. “I tried to promote things that were relevant to them — things that help the music community. I tried to provide information about local venues, promoters, DJs, and artists that were struggling: ‘Here’s how you can help.’ ”

Dakin says one of his stations just raised $10,000 to buy restaurant gift cards that they’re planning on giving to hospitals. “All that money came from the listeners,” he says. “People want to help and radio is good for that.”

The dissipation of localism wasn’t something that happened overnight. “As Weatherly used to say, it’s ‘death by a thousand cuts,’ ” Tilles points out. “It was something that happened every time the station was sold and traded hands, and the people who took it over cared a little less about the culture and what made it special. It also had to do with them wanting to use its identity to help sell other stations’ commercial inventory.”

“They want to be able to both program all of their stations and sell all of their stations universally — meaning that one person would oversee all of [one company’s] alternative stations,” says Tilles. “You’re also seeing a homogenization — or a scaling — of sales. If I’m calling Budweiser and I want to sell Budweiser 117 radio stations, and the only one they actually care about is KROQ, but I can’t sell them KROQ? Well, that’s a problem. So, over time those barriers are removed, but those barriers may have been the brand-protection agents that worked within the company, that held on to the culture that made that station an anomaly.”

In a 2019 Statista survey of the reasons for the decline in radio listening in North America, 41 percent cited other audio options as the main factor for leaving radio behind. The very last reason to listen to radio less was a lack of local information (five percent) — which implies that people don’t have issues with receiving local information, and they may even like it.

Radio companies have publicly spoken about decisions to pursue a balance of local and national — with some believing that a 24/7 cycle of live and local news updates should be saved primarily for news/talk stations, which are largely found on AM airwaves. Field, Entercom’s CEO, suggests terrestrial radio can be home to many things — local content, but also podcasts, on-demand, and syndicated programming, as well as the development of a one-stop-shop platform like radio.com. He says he’s looking at a “broader audio business” that can be delivered both digitally and terrestrially.

Could branching out in so many ways confuse the consumer, though? Field doesn’t think so, and says the double-digit growth in radio.com’s total listener hours and monthly average users would support the success of the multipronged strategy.

Feet on the streets

Large street teams are a thing of the past. But one of the most unique and impactful things a radio station can do is stake a physical presence, radio veterans say. Radio’s dwindling physical connection in the pre-COVID era may have set it up for failure, especially because it’s not possible to make up for that physical contact now. “The physical element of the radio stations — where you would go out, meet a DJ, and drop off canned food or masks or whatever you have — those things have all kind of dried up,” says Tilles. “They try to do everything digitally, and you can’t help people digitally these days in a time of crisis like this. Terrestrial radio is not doing the one thing that sets it apart.”

“We go to charity events. I really think that’s the only way radio can live,” Dakin says. “You gotta go to a million events. You gotta host every charity event that they ask you to. It’s a political campaign. The best jocks and the best radio stations are out all the time meeting people.”

In trying to compete with streaming services, satellite radio, and podcasts, terrestrial radio seems to have lost something of its original mission: Familiarity, flexibility, localization, and interactivity. When considering the future of the medium — whether during the ongoing crisis or afterward — veterans warn of not losing track of those original distinguishing features. “These personalities are so key to helping terrestrial radio,” says Axelsen. “They differentiate it from myriad other algorithm-driven music platforms. A good radio personality is a good narrator, someone you emotionally connect with or disagree with. That’s a tour guide.”

Radio conglomerates do show signs of wanting to adapt and pivot. Recently, for example, companies have announced pay cuts in their executive tiers to help alleviate the economic fallout of the pandemic on their operations. “We want our shareholders to know that we have taken immediate and proactive steps to weather this crisis,” iHeart’s CEO, Bob Pittman, last week said in a statement accompanying news that the company would cut $250 million in costs, due in part to senior managers taking voluntary decreases in compensation.

“Like virtually every business in America right now, we are dealing with an unprecedented, massive challenge that is hammering the amount of advertising dollars, because so many of our clients are closed right now,” says Entercom’s Field, who approved a 30 percent reduction of his own salary. “That creates an imperative for us to significantly reduce expenses. We’ve reduced salaries across the company for anybody making more than $50,000. We have suspended our 401(k). We’ve done a whole bunch of things to cut back on expenses to try to minimize the amount of layoffs. But due to the magnitude of the challenge, we had to make significant cuts.”

The radio business hasn’t specified how those savings will translate into strategy, though. In time, we’ll see whether companies take strategic action to re-endear themselves to listeners — and whether these changes are enough to help the industry ride out the crisis.

Source: In a Crisis, Radio Should Be Bigger Than Ever -- So Why Isn't It? - Rolling Stone