James Taylor was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and when a child his family moved to North Carolina. He learnt guitar at a young age, listening to folk and blues music, and played as a duo with his friend Danny Kortchmar. Towards the end of his school career he began to suffer from depression, and at Kortchmar's urging moved to New York City to start a band, which became The Flying Machine. Around this time he got into heroin, and things looked bleaked, until he was rescued by his father and return to North Carolina to recover. After his recovery he decided on a change of scenery, and moved to London to work as a solo act. His demos were heard by Peter Ascher, and he was soon signed to The Beatles' Apple Records, the first non-Brit to do so. When it came to recording his debut album, he had already lived alot, and seen many ups and downs - ingredients for some powerful singer-songwriter material. His self-titled album was built around his tender voice and talented acoustic guitar picking, with orchestration added by arranger Richard Hewsen. This orchestration, which included unusual link passages between the songs, received a mixed reception, and it could be argued that it marred an otherwise fine record. However two brilliant songs stood out, which have endured as among his best-loved works - "Something In The Way She Moves" and "Carolina In My Mind".
Unfortunately during the recording of the album Taylor got back into heroin. He returned to New York and was hospitalized. On the album's release he was uable to promote it, and subsequently it did not chart well. At the same time, Apple Records had fallen into chaos, and they parted ways with Taylor. But he did take Peter Ascher with him as his manager, and before long was signed to Warner Brothers. After many years of hard work, great things were soon to come his way.
|> Sweet Baby James (1970)
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1 comment:
Hey there! Really Love your blog. Thanks for your hard work. was looking for this record in a long time. so I am somewhat suprised that I overlooked it here.
Since I have the LP, I recognized a mistake in this one, though. so would you mind sharing the source? I am absolutly sure that on this 1969 record there is another, alternate take (considered the fast original version) of "Carolina in my Mind". The version here is the one from the 1976(?) 'Greatest Hits'.
Would love to hear if you could provide the other version since I don't have equipment to convert my LP to mp3.
Greets from Germany!
PYT
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