James Taylor

Taylor got married to his fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon in 1972. They have two children, Ben and Sally who are also aspiring musicians. The couple divorced in 1983.

He remarried in December 1985 to actress Kathryn Walker in New York. They got divorced in 1996.

In February 2001, Taylor wed for the third time marrying Caroline ‘Kim’ Smedvig. They presently live in the town of Washington, Massachusetts with their twin sons, Rufus and Henry.

James Taylor was born in Massachusetts, Boston. His father, Dr. Isaac M. Taylor was a resident physician who came from a well-off family of Southern Scottish ancestry. His mother, Gertrude Woodward was an aspiring opera singer.

He had three brothers, Alex, Livingston and Hugh, and one sister, Kate. His siblings all became musicians and recorded albums of their own.

At the age of three, James and his family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina when Dr. Taylor was appointed dean of the Medical School at the University of North Carolina.

He started attending a prep school called Milton Academy in 1963 where he met fellow guitarist from New York, Danny ‘Kootch’ Kortchmar. Both began listening to blues and folk music.

He wrote his first song when he was just 14 years old and started performing at local coffeehouses with Kortchmar, and formed a band with his brother Alex, called The Corsayers.

In 1966, he formed a new group called The Flying Machines, with Kortchmar and Joel O’ Brien. The band played some of Taylor’s songs that he had written in the hospital like ‘Knocking 'Round the Zoo’, ‘Don't Talk Now’, and ‘The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream’.

They released one single, ‘Brighten Your Night with My Day’ written by Taylor but it did not do well and the band broke up in the spring of 1967.

He became addicted to heroin and moved to London to recover where he got in touch with Peter Asher who was working for Apple Records.

He released his debut solo album, ‘James Taylor’ in the U.K in 1968 and in U.S. in 1969 but it did not do well.

After an unfortunate accident in July 1969 which forced him to take a break from playing music, he signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records.

His first commercially successful album ‘Sweet Baby James’ featuring the hit single ‘Fire and Ice’ hit No. 3 in the Billboards. The album sold around 1.5 million copies in the first year and almost 3 million eventually in the U.S. It was received as a folk-rock masterpiece.

His 1971 album ‘Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon’ was a even bigger hit than ‘Sweet baby James’. The hit single ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ became No. 1 in the Billboards and the album surpassed its predecessor by reaching the No. 2 position.

‘JT’ was a triple platinum success with more than 3 million copies being sold in the US alone. His hit cover of Jimmy Jones and Otis Blackwell's ‘Handy Man’ hit No. 1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached No. 4 on the Hot 100. The song also topped the Canadian charts