James Taylor\u2019s self-titled 1968 debut album, which featured the gorgeous, downbeat ballads \u201cCarolina in My Mind\u201d and \u201cSweet Baby James,\u201d earned him a small but dedicated following among the collegiate liberal-arts set. But as the 60s counterculture burned itself out and the 70s began, his second album made him a star. Sweet Baby James (1970) featured a now-classic title track as well as Taylor\u2019s first true hits, \u201cCountry Road\u201d and \u201cFire and Rain.\u201d\u00a0 With fellow singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Carole King also in ascendancy, Time magazine saw fit to declare a trend, placing James Taylor on its March 1, 1971, cover under the headline \u201cThe New Rock: Bittersweet and Low.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last year a far gentler variety of rock sound has begun to soothe the land,\u201d the Time article said in contrasting Taylor\u2019s music to the \u201cwalloping folk rock of Bob Dylan,\u201d the \u201cthunderous eloquence of the Beatles\u201d and the \u201cleer of the Rolling Stones.\u201d The article declined to offer a straightforward explanation for the apparent shift in public tastes, but it offered a trenchant sociological analysis of James Taylor\u2019s particular appeal. On the one hand, the story argued, there was the subject matter of his songs, most of which dealt with the kind of internal struggles that \u201ca lavish quota of middle-class advantages\u2014plenty of money, a loving family, good schools, health, charm and talent\u2014do not seem to prevent, and may in fact exacerbate.\u201d And then there was this: \u201cLean and hard (6 ft. 3 in., 155 Ibs.), often mustachioed, always with hair breaking at his shoulders, Taylor physically projects a blend of Heathcliffian inner fire with a melancholy look that can strike to the female heart\u2014at any age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever the explanation for James Taylor\u2019s appeal, it was considerable. Just months after his appearance on the cover of Time, Taylor scored a #1 pop hit with the Carole King song \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Friend.\u201d He continues to be an enormously popular and multigenerational concert draw, and his catalog of early-70s albums continues to sell well even decades after his hair started receding from his forehead instead of breaking at his shoulders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James Taylor\u2019s self-titled 1968 debut album, which featured the gorgeous, downbeat ballads \u201cCarolina in My Mind\u201d and \u201cSweet Baby James,\u201d earned him a small but dedicated following among the collegiate liberal-arts set. But as the 60s counterculture burned itself out and the 70s began, his second album made him a star. Sweet Baby James (1970) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}