Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's hard to mistake James Taylor's voice. It's sweet
Speaker 1: and sounds care free, and if you know the cliff
Speaker 1: Notes version of James's life, that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1: Summers and Martha's Vineyard as a kid signed by the
Speaker 1: Beatles to Apple Records at only nineteen years old, relationships
Speaker 1: with Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon, becoming one of the
Speaker 1: premier singer songwriters of the seventies when competition was stiff.
Speaker 1: But these autobiographical details and his sweet voice belie the
Speaker 1: traumatic events of his early days, two stints in a
Speaker 1: mental institution, heroin addiction, and alcoholic father. This is the
Speaker 1: life James attempts to make sense of and his new
Speaker 1: audio memoir Breakshot, all of which he traces back to
Speaker 1: a traumatic family event he says left the Taylor's cursed.
Speaker 1: When Malcolm Gladwell and James Taylor got together to talk
Speaker 1: about his new memoir, they dove into these darker memories
Speaker 1: from James's past and how his songwriting started as a
Speaker 1: form of therapy. They also discussed why James fields his
Speaker 1: last five albums have been his absolute best work, including
Speaker 1: his latest American Standard. His new albums out February twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: and is full of the songs James Hurd growing up,
Speaker 1: songs that offered him refuge, songs that ultimately offered him
Speaker 1: a new life through music. This is broken record liner
Speaker 1: notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmonton. Here's Malcolm
Speaker 1: Gladwell and James Taylor from GSI Studios in New York.
Speaker 1: What I wanted to start with the most unexpected fact
Speaker 1: that came up as I was preparing, which was Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift is named for you. Yes, that was a surprise
Speaker 1: to me too. We first met at a benefit for
Speaker 1: an organization that is meant to mitigate teenage pregnancy and
Speaker 1: she was doing a couple of songs and so was I. Yea,
Speaker 1: and she told me at that point that was before
Speaker 1: she you know, it was such a success. But it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder how many tailors out there have you
Speaker 1: inadvertently spawned. That's a good question. So I the I
Speaker 1: was listening to break shot your audible original, which I
Speaker 1: thought was fascinating. So your your dad grows up in Morganton,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and your mom is in New England. There
Speaker 1: I kind of put a real you're saying grew up
Speaker 1: as a fisherman's daughter in New Report. So a real
Speaker 1: New England there, that's right. Your parents married and what
Speaker 1: year they married in forty well probably in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: seven seven, Yeah, so in nineteen forty seven, that would
Speaker 1: be right, they would have That's what I mean one
Speaker 1: your your father or Southern or your mother or New
Speaker 1: England or those are distinct identities in that they are
Speaker 1: they are. I mean, they were politically very aligned, but
Speaker 1: they were from two different cultures. But my father was
Speaker 1: you know, the thing is really about him is that
Speaker 1: he didn't belong you know in uh. I think that
Speaker 1: that he he didn't really he identified uh sort of
Speaker 1: as we identify our context. He identified that as being Southern.
Speaker 1: But I don't think he felt a part of anything really.
Speaker 1: I think he was quite um, quite isolated. It's sort
Speaker 1: of it's the I think that's the key to to
Speaker 1: understanding my father say that he was He never really
Speaker 1: had a context in which he felt he belonged, and
Speaker 1: you know that changed over time. But I'm pursuing this
Speaker 1: both because this is the a big part of breakshot,
Speaker 1: this memoire that you've done, but also because it so
Speaker 1: obviously feeds into a lot of your music, but I
Speaker 1: wanted to linger a little bit about your You tell
Speaker 1: this story? Can you tell the story in the book?
Speaker 1: It's the most one of the most heartbreaking stories I
Speaker 1: think I've ever heard about your Your grandfather, I think
Speaker 1: it's my great grandfather. You mean the one who delivered
Speaker 1: my father, right, Well, my grandmother biologically was a warrant
Speaker 1: from Springfield named Theodosia Haynes, and she met met Alexander Taylor,
Speaker 1: my grandfather father, and the two of them fell in
Speaker 1: love and she got pregnant. They married, and the child
Speaker 1: was delivered by my grandfather's father, my great grandfather, and
Speaker 1: he hadn't delivered a child for for a while. And
Speaker 1: I think after the birth of my father, she contracted
Speaker 1: what was called childbirth fever, but it was really just
Speaker 1: an infection, you know, it was this was pretty antibiotics.
Speaker 1: And she died. Uh And the the great grandfather, my
Speaker 1: great grandfather, who delivered her, was dead within two months,
Speaker 1: and I think the assumption is that he may have suicided,
Speaker 1: you know. So, um so, my father really like his mother,
Speaker 1: went to the family because my grandfather, Alexander just fell
Speaker 1: apart really and descended into alcoholism, which was there was
Speaker 1: a lot of addiction in the family. Yes, it was
Speaker 1: a tragic start, and I think it it gave my
Speaker 1: father the sense that that his position was very conditional,
Speaker 1: you know, that he didn't really have a secure place
Speaker 1: in the world, and that his performance was going to
Speaker 1: really you know, that was that was going to be
Speaker 1: the thing that that allowed him, you know, a place
Speaker 1: in the lifeboat. In in Brickshot, you talk about a
Speaker 1: lot about how that's almost like the original sin of
Speaker 1: the tailors, that it cast a shadow, a multi generational
Speaker 1: shadow in the famid does. It's like ripples and they
Speaker 1: spread out. And I think the thing manifested when my dad,
Speaker 1: you know, he had he had five kids in Bally
Speaker 1: in six years and we all as as we entered
Speaker 1: adolescence and the prospect of leaving home. I think that
Speaker 1: my dad just was out of his depth. I think
Speaker 1: it it was something that he just didn't know how
Speaker 1: to how to deal with. It also coincided with his
Speaker 1: drinking becoming. You know, alcoholism progresses. My father is an
Speaker 1: extremely functional alcoholic for many, many years, but ultimately that
Speaker 1: you know that you lose control of that eventually, and
Speaker 1: and that happened around the same time. So my parents
Speaker 1: marriage also fell apart at that that time. And the
Speaker 1: culture was was the Vietnam baby boom culture of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight or sixty six, you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was every buddy was was questioning their connections and their
Speaker 1: context and the and the thought was abroad in the
Speaker 1: land that we change everything, you know, that it would
Speaker 1: all that there was a distinct interruption, you know, discontinuation
Speaker 1: with the last with the World War two mentality of
Speaker 1: that generation. And we were a new generation that was
Speaker 1: really going to change things. And there were so many
Speaker 1: of us at the same time, so you know, all
Speaker 1: of these things happened at once. Uh. And and I
Speaker 1: my own personal story is that I sort of had
Speaker 1: a breakdown, you know, I just couldn't go forward, and
Speaker 1: I sort of had a crisis there, and it precipitated
Speaker 1: in my siblings a similar a similar sort of derailment.
Speaker 1: And how many of your siblings end up you and
Speaker 1: how many of your siblings end up intitutionalized to him,
Speaker 1: to two others. But my older brother really should have
Speaker 1: he was he was the ultimately the sacrifice, my brother Alex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you you spend ten months at McLean Hospital. Um,
Speaker 1: and once again we're as you point out, McClean hospital
Speaker 1: is where Robert Lowell went where uh and Sexton was
Speaker 1: teaching poetry classes. You said at some point, so your
Speaker 1: Platt worked there. Yes, Um, I mean the list is
Speaker 1: kind of like it's it's a kind of another you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a series of these kind of um iconic
Speaker 1: set pieces. It's like a nexus. Yeah, yeah, that's true. There.
Speaker 1: I never I didn't think about it at the time,
Speaker 1: but it sort of was where one went, you know,
Speaker 1: if you had a breakdown. Yeah, yeah, it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was Harvard Medical School and mass General Hospital. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you I was curious about in those So you
Speaker 1: had this very tumultuous teenage late teenage years where you're
Speaker 1: you leave North Carolina, you go to boarding school for
Speaker 1: a while, then you have your breakdown, you go back
Speaker 1: to North Carolina, and then you finished school at Milton Academy.
Speaker 1: Were you writing music in that period? What's what was
Speaker 1: your musical identity in those years? Yeah? I was starting
Speaker 1: to well when I went home to North Carolina for
Speaker 1: that junior year, I was in a band with my
Speaker 1: brother Alex. But before then on Martha's Vineyard, it would
Speaker 1: had been the middle of what a friend of mine
Speaker 1: calls the folk scare of the of the early sixties.
Speaker 1: You know, so folk music was the sort of thing
Speaker 1: on campuses, and it was you know, Bob Dylan and
Speaker 1: John Bias and the Kingston EO and Peter Paul and
Speaker 1: Mary and you know that, but also Odetta and Lightning
Speaker 1: Hopkins and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and Jesse Loncat
Speaker 1: Fuller and Reverend Gary Davis. You know, there was country
Speaker 1: blues in there as well. So on Martha's Vineyard in
Speaker 1: the summertime, it was easy to pick up a guitar
Speaker 1: and learned from other people who were around, and and
Speaker 1: to find people to sing with and play with. And
Speaker 1: there were open mics at a various a couple of
Speaker 1: coffeehouses they were called. But what's the function of am
Speaker 1: I reading too much into it? But his music? Does
Speaker 1: music have a kind of psychological function for you in
Speaker 1: that troubled moment? Is it your own personal therapy as
Speaker 1: you deal with all of this? Yeah, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: I think that probably a good deal of what art is,
Speaker 1: if this can be called it's a commercial art. It
Speaker 1: is you know, is a kind of therapy or a
Speaker 1: way of getting something insoluble that's inside just in front
Speaker 1: of you somehow. You know, it's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: was a cutter when I was when I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like that you sort of want to
Speaker 1: see the scar. Uh So music definitely started to me
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, it was always a celebratory thing.
Speaker 1: That was that was the main thing about it is
Speaker 1: that it was fun and joyful. But when I started
Speaker 1: to write, I started to write from a sort of
Speaker 1: a therapeutic place, I guess. And that's what I'm known for,
Speaker 1: sort of that that kind of uh. I mean, people
Speaker 1: who go into my stuff in any depth realize that
Speaker 1: that's just a corner of it. But but it was
Speaker 1: the thing that really resonated with people when when fire
Speaker 1: and rain took off. Yeah, I guess my question and
Speaker 1: this is an unanswerable question, but a fun one. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: had your mother Trudy married a prosperous, happy New England
Speaker 1: merchant and had that been the version of your life?
Speaker 1: Are you a musician or are you something else? No?
Speaker 1: I mean there was no My mother had studied voice.
Speaker 1: She sort of was the last generation that went to
Speaker 1: finishing schools, and she went to a school in Boston
Speaker 1: called Missus Child's School on Beacon Hill, and those women
Speaker 1: were learning to be wives. It was sort of pre
Speaker 1: Ruth Vader Ginsberg, you know, it was pre my mother
Speaker 1: could see she could see the promised land. But but
Speaker 1: you know, and it was frustrated, and you know, so
Speaker 1: she had children and um and was basically a sort
Speaker 1: of a faculty wife, which was a it was a
Speaker 1: job really. But when I you know, so in the
Speaker 1: summertime I had been playing the guitar and getting into
Speaker 1: blues and folk music. I met my friend Danny Korchmar,
Speaker 1: who coach who was to be for my whole life,
Speaker 1: a major connection for me musically, and he introduced me
Speaker 1: to a lot of the music that I was has
Speaker 1: been a source to me, so that there was this
Speaker 1: musical life on the vineyard. Then when I went home
Speaker 1: to North Carolina, I was in a band with my
Speaker 1: brother Alex, and I played the electric guitar and we
Speaker 1: basically were we played fraternity parties, we played what were
Speaker 1: you playing? What kind of music? Well, it was called
Speaker 1: beach music, and what it was was the music that
Speaker 1: Southern college students loved when they went to Virginia Beach
Speaker 1: or Myrtle Beach or or Rightful Beach when they took
Speaker 1: their spring break and they went to party on the
Speaker 1: on the coast. That was the music to what kind
Speaker 1: of can you remember any of the songs. I've never
Speaker 1: heard that term before. A song like Shotgun by Junior
Speaker 1: Walker in the All Stars. That's beach music. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: was very close to the to the Chitland circuit, you know,
Speaker 1: I see those acts that could work that circuit could
Speaker 1: also do the beach circuit. It was a place where
Speaker 1: race is mixed to a certain extent, a limited extent.
Speaker 1: And that's what my brother Alex got into. You know.
Speaker 1: He just loved that music. Anyone who heard it loved it,
Speaker 1: and it was just it was great, Like, uh, you
Speaker 1: know that song a search in by the Coasters. That
Speaker 1: was That was a song called Searching and it was
Speaker 1: the first soul music that I ever heard. I was
Speaker 1: in a bus going from a camp in the mountains
Speaker 1: of North Carolina to Tennessee over the border, and the
Speaker 1: bus driver had a like a I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was the car radio or if it was a
Speaker 1: transistor or what it was, but it was playing that
Speaker 1: song and I just it was like it was like
Speaker 1: somebody you know, carbonated my blood. You know, it was
Speaker 1: just amazing. Yeah, was it unusual for for white people
Speaker 1: to be playing that music in that part of North
Speaker 1: Carolina at that point? I mean it was your brother.
Speaker 1: Was your band with your brother an oddity or was
Speaker 1: it commonplace? Well there was only there was only one
Speaker 1: among high school students in our town, so in the
Speaker 1: town of Chapel Hill, and for that reason we got work.
Speaker 1: We weren't very good, but we were you know. So
Speaker 1: that was a big influence. Folk music first, then beach music,
Speaker 1: my brother's music, and then after McClean, I came to
Speaker 1: New York and started playing here in town for about
Speaker 1: a year. We had a band called the Flying Machine,
Speaker 1: and it just we we just couldn't compete. We petered out.
Speaker 1: You had to get a record contract in those days,
Speaker 1: and we did sign one, much to my chagrin years
Speaker 1: later when when it turned out I'd also signed a
Speaker 1: publishing contract. But we were in their hands and they
Speaker 1: gave us two days in the studio and that's it.
Speaker 1: You know, just what kind of music was that, you know,
Speaker 1: it was funny. It started by we sort of identified
Speaker 1: as a blues band, but you know, we realized that
Speaker 1: was sort of inappropriate. We were essentially suburban kids, you know,
Speaker 1: but we love the music. But we also played Jogi
Speaker 1: Carmichael songs. We played God Bless the Child to billy
Speaker 1: holiday tune, and so we we had odd material, you know,
Speaker 1: and I wrote a couple of songs for that. I
Speaker 1: wrote a tune called a night Owl. I'm a night Owl,
Speaker 1: and I wrote a song called Brighten your Night with
Speaker 1: My Day. I cringe to think of it, but there
Speaker 1: it is. And uh, um, you know, we we tried
Speaker 1: our best. We were We got a job as the
Speaker 1: house band at a club called the night Owl at
Speaker 1: McDougall and third. That's just down to yeah, but this
Speaker 1: is a little bit after Downs Gone, Dylan's has left,
Speaker 1: um and Stephen Stills had had gone to the coast
Speaker 1: and started Buffalo Springfield. That was also you know, that
Speaker 1: was a you know, an example of what we were
Speaker 1: aspiring to. But our record deal was a dead end
Speaker 1: and it basically killed us. We were signed to people
Speaker 1: who wouldn't record us. So yeah, yeah, that was the
Speaker 1: end of the sand. Is there anything that you wrote
Speaker 1: in those years that you feel like stands with some
Speaker 1: of your best work. Do you look back fondly on
Speaker 1: anything from that and say, you know what that was?
Speaker 1: That was really the beginning of what I really stand for.
Speaker 1: You know. I wrote a song called I'm a Night
Speaker 1: Out that I think was the best thing I wrote
Speaker 1: in those days, just as a song, the way it
Speaker 1: was constructed, and you know, and it had a feel
Speaker 1: to it. You know, it was good. And and I've
Speaker 1: often thought that I'd like to, you know, try to
Speaker 1: cut that. Yeah, cut did it go? Oh? It was?
Speaker 1: You know. A fish likes the water, that's where he's
Speaker 1: going to be. A monkey lives on fruits and bananas,
Speaker 1: so he lives in the top of a tree. But
Speaker 1: my eyes are made for darkness, so the nighttimes right
Speaker 1: from me, I'm a night owl. Most folks like the daytime.
Speaker 1: They're light to see the signing shining sun. They're up
Speaker 1: in the morning, off and run until they're too tired
Speaker 1: to have any fun. But when the when the sun
Speaker 1: goes down and the bright lights shine, my daytime has
Speaker 1: just begun. I'm a night owl. Close those curtains, form you, honey,
Speaker 1: it's just about to make me blind anyways, point out
Speaker 1: that you are reciting from memory a song written over
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, and you must have written in the
Speaker 1: course of your life. How many songs? How many? I
Speaker 1: think it's probably approaching one hundred and fifty. Now maybe
Speaker 1: it's more, maybe it's more like two hundred. But it's
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. You know. It's a funny thing. I think
Speaker 1: that for me, anything that has music connected to it,
Speaker 1: I can remember. I don't know any Italian, but I
Speaker 1: can sing. I can sing ladone mobile as you know.
Speaker 1: I learned it in Italian and it's just because there's
Speaker 1: music attached to it. It sticks in my mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think that that's why people when they
Speaker 1: learn English, why English songs, English popular music is so
Speaker 1: useful to them. You know that that a lot of
Speaker 1: people have told me. You know, I learned English by
Speaker 1: by listening to English lyrics. Yeah. Yeah, who to go
Speaker 1: back to? So we're talking about what years now that
Speaker 1: you are. What year are you in Are you in
Speaker 1: Grene Village playing in those clubs? Well, um, that's nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, sixty six, I'm eighteen years old. You're eighteen
Speaker 1: years old when you look back on that year. I know,
Speaker 1: you you fall back into drugs or fall into drugs,
Speaker 1: I guess for the first time. Um, but do you
Speaker 1: have is the is the is the year in your memory? Chaotic?
Speaker 1: Is it a pleasant? I mean, how do you kind
Speaker 1: of look back on that? Oh? It was great, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole thing was it was a riot. You know.
Speaker 1: I was free, eighteen and living in New York City.
Speaker 1: The drinking age was eighteen at that point. So where
Speaker 1: were you living? We lived in the Albert Hotel, which
Speaker 1: was at on University at Eleventh Street. It was below
Speaker 1: just below Union Square, and there was one of the
Speaker 1: floors of the hotel it burned, you know, there'd been
Speaker 1: a serious fire. But there was one room that had
Speaker 1: survived it. But they couldn't rent it, really rent it.
Speaker 1: But they rented it to me and the bass player,
Speaker 1: my best friend, Zach Weasner, who I knew from the Vineyard.
Speaker 1: Zach and I took that sort of suite of rooms
Speaker 1: for just for almost no money, I mean, and we
Speaker 1: rehearsed in the basement of the Albert Hotel. So that
Speaker 1: was where I lived first. And then I you know,
Speaker 1: I would crash at different people's places too, and Eventually
Speaker 1: I got an apartment on eighty fourth in Columbus, which
Speaker 1: in those days was you know it was yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a rough neighborhood and and it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was a cheap rent. What are you doing all?
Speaker 1: That's question? But what are you doing all day at
Speaker 1: that age in New York City? Well, you get up
Speaker 1: late and you go to work at the night Al Cafe,
Speaker 1: which is where our gig was. And that was six
Speaker 1: days a week. So from when to end, probably from
Speaker 1: seven o'clock till midnight, three four or five sets we
Speaker 1: would do. People would come in the order hamburg and
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee or something. They didn't have a
Speaker 1: liquorized and you know, we play a twenty minute set.
Speaker 1: There was no backstage to speak of. There was like
Speaker 1: a closet where we could hang out or in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: But are you are you writing? How much music are
Speaker 1: you writing in those years? I'm starting to write now,
Speaker 1: but uh, like that night Owl song is written in
Speaker 1: that in that era? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you
Speaker 1: know the guy who ran the club, it's a labor
Speaker 1: of love. I don't know why he did it. He
Speaker 1: did it because he loved the music. I think and
Speaker 1: just wanted to be part of the life because it
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't a living the guy. We were
Speaker 1: making like less than a hundred dollars a week for
Speaker 1: each of us. But you could live on that then, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing that you could live on that. But you know,
Speaker 1: the subway still wasn't a quarter. It was still a
Speaker 1: dime to ride the subway, so one hundred dollars could
Speaker 1: go a certain distance. Yeah, those days. And you know
Speaker 1: they also fed us dinner, I mean free free Hamburgs
Speaker 1: at the yeah, the night owl. So really, rent was
Speaker 1: the only consideration the So you're things get bad and
Speaker 1: you and then your father comes and rescues you, which
Speaker 1: was an incredibly touching moment, given how troubled your relationship
Speaker 1: was with him and how troubled your family life was.
Speaker 1: He drives from North Carolina to New York. He did.
Speaker 1: He I called home. The Flying Machine had had disbanded.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a habit, a heroin addiction that
Speaker 1: I was. It really was going to get me in
Speaker 1: trouble sometime very soon, you know, because I no longer
Speaker 1: was in contact with with Joel O'Brien, who was had
Speaker 1: been my sort of source and a sort of safe
Speaker 1: way to get into the to get access to the
Speaker 1: to the drug. But being an eighteen year old kid
Speaker 1: on the street trying to hustle an to have a
Speaker 1: habit was going to really get me in trouble soon,
Speaker 1: There's no question about it. And my father really did.
Speaker 1: It was like the cavalry coming over the hill. I
Speaker 1: think he sensed it. I called him up. He said,
Speaker 1: how are you doing. I said, you know, Dad, not
Speaker 1: so good. And he just said, where are you. I
Speaker 1: told him the address eighty fourth in Columbus. He said,
Speaker 1: don't move. He says, stay right there, do not leave
Speaker 1: the apartment. So you know, I went home to North
Speaker 1: Carolina and I stayed there for about six months, and
Speaker 1: then I went to England. Yeah. Yeah, And you serendipitously
Speaker 1: get in touch with someone who is involved with Apple Records.
Speaker 1: That's why you see my friend coach Danny kortchmar who
Speaker 1: had been the other guitar in the Flying Machine and
Speaker 1: who had known from Martha's Vineyard and we'd played. He
Speaker 1: had introduced me to the blues and some Latin music
Speaker 1: and stuff, and he had in the year before the
Speaker 1: Flying Machine he had been with a group called the
Speaker 1: King Bee's Much Better Name, and the King Bes had
Speaker 1: backed up Peter and Gordon, an English group, a duo.
Speaker 1: I don't care what they say, I won't stay in
Speaker 1: the world without Love. That was one of their hits,
Speaker 1: and another McCartney song called Night and Rusty Armor. But
Speaker 1: Peter was Jane Asher's sister, who was Paul McCartney's girlfriend,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of steady girl for a while there,
Speaker 1: and Peter had, as chance would have it, he had
Speaker 1: just accepted a job at the Beatles brand new record label,
Speaker 1: Apple Records, and his job was basically to find and
Speaker 1: sign other acts to the label. So when I called
Speaker 1: Cooch when I got to London and really started getting
Speaker 1: serious about somebody hearing my music and maybe making a record,
Speaker 1: I call Cooch back in the States and said, if
Speaker 1: you still got a number for Peter Asher from Peter
Speaker 1: and Gordon, And he said, I got a number. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's any good, but it turned out
Speaker 1: it was, and Peter was just at the right the
Speaker 1: right person to call at the right time. He heard
Speaker 1: my stuff and liked it, and he took me to
Speaker 1: Apple Records, where I auditioned for Paul McCartney and George Harrison,
Speaker 1: and they said, Peter, if you want to make a
Speaker 1: record with this guy, let's sign. How old are you
Speaker 1: at this point? This point, I'm nineteen. You're nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: You have just had this kind of disastrous ending to
Speaker 1: your time in New York, and then within six months
Speaker 1: or a year you are auditioning for Paul McCartney in
Speaker 1: Church Harrison and an incredible just a the mother of
Speaker 1: all lucky breaks, you know, just exactly what So how
Speaker 1: did it happen? You go over to your your, your your,
Speaker 1: Where is it again? Where's the Apple Studios? It's in
Speaker 1: um uh they were well, eventually they were in Saville Row,
Speaker 1: but when I went there in in early January of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, they were at Baker Street. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was a sort of rented office space. And as
Speaker 1: soon as they bought a building in Saville Row, that's
Speaker 1: that's where they moved. But the uh, you know, it
Speaker 1: was I just couldn't believe it. I went along with
Speaker 1: Peter and we went up into these offices and I
Speaker 1: met a number of people who seemed really nice, and
Speaker 1: it was all, you know, quite amazing, and he Peter
Speaker 1: remembers it as leaning out into the hall and just saying,
Speaker 1: is there a beatle in the house? And there was,
Speaker 1: and there was. There were two and they came down
Speaker 1: and we walked into a room and I I can't
Speaker 1: remember it really very well because did you play? I
Speaker 1: played Something in the Way She Moves? Why did you
Speaker 1: choose that was? At the moment that was your you
Speaker 1: considered to be your best song? Yes, I thought it
Speaker 1: was probably It's probably the best one I hit. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with more of James Taylor's Beatle audition after
Speaker 1: the break. We're back with Malcolm and James Taylor. Before
Speaker 1: the break, James was telling Malcolm about his audition with
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney and George Harrison and producer Peter Asher, where
Speaker 1: he played the group something in the Way She Moves.
Speaker 1: So they so they listen and they say, do you
Speaker 1: remember They said to Peter, you know, I think Peter
Speaker 1: went out of the room with them. They said very nice,
Speaker 1: very nice, and left the room and Peter said, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think and he said sounds good to me.
Speaker 1: Do you do you want to record him? Peter said yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll produce him, and they said okay, yeah, what are
Speaker 1: the great job interviews of all time? Can I point out?
Speaker 1: I think so, you know, an actually it's like a
Speaker 1: fantasy of a job interview, an actual you know. Apple
Speaker 1: only lasted for a very short time, less than in
Speaker 1: a year, really, yeah, because Alan Klein had convinced Yoko
Speaker 1: and John that he should manage them, because after Epstein
Speaker 1: died there really was a great uh you know gap
Speaker 1: and no question about it. Apple was badly run and
Speaker 1: it was hemorrhaging money. And but you know, there were
Speaker 1: a number of people signed to it, Billy Preston, myself,
Speaker 1: Mary Hopkin, Jackie Lomax, uh, the Modern Jazz Quartet. But
Speaker 1: Alan Klein came in and wasn't interested in any of that,
Speaker 1: you know, and our contracts said that we could audit him.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to be audited, so you know, McCartney
Speaker 1: didn't you know, had been warned off him by a
Speaker 1: number of people, including the Rolling Stones, who who had
Speaker 1: had a disastrous uh time with Alan Klein. But he
Speaker 1: was just one of these pirates who manages to convince people,
Speaker 1: and John and Yoko went for it. So it was
Speaker 1: probably like the death knell for the for the Beatles.
Speaker 1: But he closed down Apple, and Peter um I had
Speaker 1: left London to go back to the States and I
Speaker 1: was trying to clean up. I was trying to get
Speaker 1: to shake my my habit again. And Peter called up
Speaker 1: while I was in an institution back back in the
Speaker 1: Berkshire's actually where I live now, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: this place is finished, he said, and we're out of
Speaker 1: the contract because Alan Klein will not be out at it.
Speaker 1: So that was it. He said, yeah, I'm gonna move
Speaker 1: to He said, I'm moving to Los Angeles and what
Speaker 1: do you say? I find us a record company and
Speaker 1: I'll be your manager. And I said, m sounds good.
Speaker 1: And I called Paul McCartney and asked him if he
Speaker 1: thought Peter would be a good manager, and Paul said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. I think McCarty's number. I guess I did.
Speaker 1: Maybe Peter gave it to me. You know, could you
Speaker 1: say you're charmed life? Your life is both not charmed
Speaker 1: and insanely charmed. Oh, it's it's totally charmed. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, the only parts about it that
Speaker 1: are bad are totally my fault. I mean, just because
Speaker 1: I have this mangled eye that that sees everything, you
Speaker 1: know as as being a drag but but in fact
Speaker 1: it's just been a gift from from start to finish,
Speaker 1: it's been wonderful. Yeah. Well, there's a little straight detail
Speaker 1: that confused me because so your song was called something
Speaker 1: in the Way She moved, Yes, something something that she
Speaker 1: was So George Harrison did he read his song after
Speaker 1: hearing yours? Yeah? Does he does? He? Does he own up?
Speaker 1: Does he say he was inspired? No? I don't think
Speaker 1: he really remembered my song. I think he remembered the
Speaker 1: line there's something in the way she moves. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he liked that line. Um, but I don't think he he.
Speaker 1: I don't think he really. It was some months later
Speaker 1: and um, actually you know that the Beatles song? Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I took that from them. So it's all karma. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all it's all just goes around. And I just
Speaker 1: I looked at it as a real you know, the
Speaker 1: thought that that he might have that I might have
Speaker 1: inspired it. George Harrison's song was was enough for me?
Speaker 1: That was great. Yeah. Yeah. And in Breakshot, you're fast
Speaker 1: fast forwarding about the strange set of coincidences that's surround
Speaker 1: and surround the death of John Lennon, and I was so,
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole thing is just so you wouldn't
Speaker 1: you couldn't make this up. So you so you couldn't
Speaker 1: make Trump up. For Christ's sake, Yes, you couldn't make good.
Speaker 1: There are many things in our world now, but but
Speaker 1: you're you at that point, living just a few blocks
Speaker 1: from John Lennet on Such Park West. I'm assuming know,
Speaker 1: not a few blocks. I was living one street up
Speaker 1: one and I my window on the sixth floor of
Speaker 1: apartment six s at at the Langhum, which is the
Speaker 1: building uptown from the from the Dakota that looked out
Speaker 1: on seventy third Street and the back of the Dakota
Speaker 1: with a sort of an arch that gave way into
Speaker 1: the archway didn't reach all the way to the street level,
Speaker 1: but it was an archway into the courtyard of the
Speaker 1: of the Dakota. So when John was shot, I was,
Speaker 1: I was in the window, you know, just just talking
Speaker 1: to someone on the phone, and I heard the I
Speaker 1: heard the shot, you know, and then the day was
Speaker 1: the day before you would run into this strange character
Speaker 1: on the subway. Yeah, who we described Hell, let's you know,
Speaker 1: just this this sort of sweaty, obviously either coked up
Speaker 1: or or or on speed, or or on some combination
Speaker 1: or in a manic break or something. This guy had
Speaker 1: sort of fastened onto me as we both left the
Speaker 1: subway station at seventy second Street, which is right there
Speaker 1: at the Dakota, and I was walking up one block
Speaker 1: to my door, and uh, and he just was in
Speaker 1: my face, talking to me about this and that and
Speaker 1: John Lennon this and and you know, his his music
Speaker 1: and uh and he has plans for this and he
Speaker 1: wants to do that, and I just like, you know,
Speaker 1: the guy was face was glistening with sweat, you know,
Speaker 1: it was just uh, you know, the picture of someone
Speaker 1: who was manic, you know, and and just flying. And
Speaker 1: I just you know, scraped him off and got out
Speaker 1: of there. And it was Mark David Chap Yeah. Wow,
Speaker 1: couldn't I couldn't believe it. The next day I was
Speaker 1: talking to Peter Asher's wife out on the West Coast
Speaker 1: and she said, I don't know if it was the
Speaker 1: if it was the Manson Trials, or if if maybe
Speaker 1: uh that one of the Manson m crew had tried
Speaker 1: to shoot um present Ford or something like that. But
Speaker 1: Squeaky from squeaky from right squeaky anyway, Um, she said,
Speaker 1: things are crazy out here on the West Coast. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just feels so strange in Los Angeles, you know,
Speaker 1: the all the the manson stuff, coming up on stuff.
Speaker 1: And I said, you think it's strange there. I just
Speaker 1: heard the police shoot somebody on the street, you know.
Speaker 1: And she said, well, how do you know that? I said, well,
Speaker 1: it sounded like a thirty eight. It was five shots
Speaker 1: in a row, which is you know, the police. I've
Speaker 1: been told that that's what a police shooting is, that
Speaker 1: they emptied the gun and that they keep an empty
Speaker 1: chamber under the hammer. And so I was sure that
Speaker 1: it was a police shooting. And she said wow, And
Speaker 1: we said goodbye and hung and rung off, and like
Speaker 1: twenty minutes later she called me back and said, that
Speaker 1: wasn't a police shooting. That was John Lennon. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: just a half hour later or something. Yeah, just amazing.
Speaker 1: They had already heard about it, but you know, so
Speaker 1: yeah it was. I had visited Yoko and John at
Speaker 1: the at the Dakota at one point, and I think
Speaker 1: they invite me over because they wanted Alan Ginsberg wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to me about some songs that he had written.
Speaker 1: And he was there, but you know, I I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to make of his lyrics or or and
Speaker 1: I really wasn't interested in collaborating, you know. And I
Speaker 1: just it was a beautiful, you know, an odd oddly
Speaker 1: decorated but you know, by what standards, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it was. You know, it was a amazing to
Speaker 1: be in their apartment. I had been in other apartments
Speaker 1: in that building before. I had looked at Leonard Bernstein's
Speaker 1: apartment which was on the market, and um, my wife
Speaker 1: and I were looking for a place then, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was out of our league. So um
Speaker 1: that's the only time I visited them there. But I
Speaker 1: was I was just in my window when the shots
Speaker 1: rang out. I want to catch on a couple of
Speaker 1: other things about about songwriting. Um, I would be remiss,
Speaker 1: you know, here I am a few feet from the
Speaker 1: great songwriters at the last kind of say that thing,
Speaker 1: So I really have to. One of the things I
Speaker 1: read that fascinating was that you often begin to compose
Speaker 1: on the piano and then go because I you know,
Speaker 1: we always imagine people like yourself in the room with
Speaker 1: your guitar struggling way. But you when did you start
Speaker 1: doing that? And what's the advantage of doing it that way? Um?
Speaker 1: On the piano. Yeah, well it's just a slightly different
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. It's often the case that you'll you'll
Speaker 1: sit down and you'll you'll be playing like a just
Speaker 1: a little you know change that comes to men, and
Speaker 1: then that will suggest you to you up a sort
Speaker 1: of a lyric or Um, let's see. And likewise, if
Speaker 1: you a sort of scrap of melody and a little
Speaker 1: bit of lyric will will happen in the context of
Speaker 1: those little wheels that you're playing, and that will, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of ignite a song. And uh. And that can
Speaker 1: also happen when you're sitting at the piano like um,
Speaker 1: you know, just I'm very I'm I can't play I
Speaker 1: can't claim to play the piano at all, but I've written, Um,
Speaker 1: I've written a number of songs on the piano, and
Speaker 1: and then uh, um I sort of explain them to
Speaker 1: a piano player and and uh and let go of it,
Speaker 1: you know, and he'll change the key I can only
Speaker 1: play in uh and uh see anyway, Uh, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit rusty even at that. But that's a tune
Speaker 1: called shed a Little Light written on the occasion of
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King's birthday. And see that was shed a
Speaker 1: little light, shedow of a light. So I'm just curious
Speaker 1: about what is it you're hearing on the piano that
Speaker 1: you that you can't hear on the guitar or can't
Speaker 1: do on the guitar. And now it's it really is
Speaker 1: what I can manage to do with my fingers and
Speaker 1: the sound that it makes, that that comes back to me.
Speaker 1: It's a feedback thing. And you know, suddenly I'm you know,
Speaker 1: trying to construct a little melody on the on the
Speaker 1: piano that I that I like. You know, it'll i'll
Speaker 1: record that. I'm I'm always traveling with something. Well, now
Speaker 1: that our phones are these great recorders, um, I don't
Speaker 1: have to carry one anymore, But I used to always
Speaker 1: carry a little digital pocket recorder. And if I have
Speaker 1: an idea or a lyrical idea while I'm walking on
Speaker 1: the street, or a melody comes to mind, I'll I'll
Speaker 1: whistle it into the thing and and then i'll i'll
Speaker 1: when it comes time to really get serious about working stuff,
Speaker 1: I'll i'll look back through all of these things and
Speaker 1: find things to work on, things to elaborate on, or
Speaker 1: things that will fit together and make a make a piece.
Speaker 1: And so with the piano, it's really just sitting down
Speaker 1: at it and playing what occurs to me. But it's
Speaker 1: a combination of what you know. It's always in the KEYFC,
Speaker 1: it's a very it's very pros it's very prescribed prescribed um.
Speaker 1: In other words, it's it's extremely limited. And uh, and
Speaker 1: so is the guitar really. I mean, I'm not a chromatic.
Speaker 1: I'm not free up the neck with the guitar that
Speaker 1: you know. I change capo positions so that I can
Speaker 1: play in a different key, or so I can use
Speaker 1: a fingering up a whole step so it'll be and
Speaker 1: B and that's more comfortable for some songs. So it's
Speaker 1: these limitations really that contain it. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'd do if I were absolutely chromatically free
Speaker 1: to do whatever I wanted. I'm really dependent upon my
Speaker 1: my limits, the limits of my vocabulary, musical vocabulary, the
Speaker 1: limits of my voice. You know, these things really put
Speaker 1: it into a shape and a recognizable one after a while.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think the same thing happens lyrically
Speaker 1: that I keep going back to familiar topics, like I
Speaker 1: have a number of songs I've written about my dad,
Speaker 1: a couple about my mom. I have songs that are
Speaker 1: like ms hymns for agnostics, spiritual songs that that are
Speaker 1: looking for some kind of spiritual connection I have, you know,
Speaker 1: I've love songs that I that I now write mostly
Speaker 1: to my wife. So then there are celebratory songs and
Speaker 1: occasionally a political song a little bit um. But I
Speaker 1: keep coming back to the same you know. It's almost
Speaker 1: like my limitations are are really the containers that the
Speaker 1: juice gets poured into, you know. Yeah, we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more of Malcolm's conversation with James Taylor. We're
Speaker 1: back with more from James Taylor. What's the song of yours?
Speaker 1: Do you think has been overlooked? There are a lot?
Speaker 1: Can you pick one? Never die young? It's enough to
Speaker 1: be on your way if I keep my heart out
Speaker 1: of sight, God have mercy on the frozen man. The
Speaker 1: song there we Are. I believe that the I've written
Speaker 1: my best work in the in the past five albums.
Speaker 1: In the album That's That's why I'm here. Our glass
Speaker 1: New Moonshine, October Road, and Before This World. I believe
Speaker 1: that that I've written my best work, my best songs,
Speaker 1: and it just happens to be out of what people
Speaker 1: are familiar with for my work. And I think that
Speaker 1: that I do have an audience that knows those songs.
Speaker 1: But um, they they're not you know, they're not the
Speaker 1: money songs. How does the active songwriting change as you
Speaker 1: as you get older. It's a really good question. It
Speaker 1: has less urgency to it, and it's being you feel
Speaker 1: less like it's being extruded from you, like it's got
Speaker 1: to get out, you know, like scratch the surface anywhere
Speaker 1: and a song will come out. And it's more like, Um,
Speaker 1: the urgency leaves and it becomes more of a craft
Speaker 1: and you you get you you become better at the
Speaker 1: just the process, you know, the you develop a method
Speaker 1: and you are more demanding in terms of the structure
Speaker 1: of it and the form of it. There was a
Speaker 1: long gap between Um, October Road and Before This World.
Speaker 1: Well what was happening in that period? Those are the
Speaker 1: two yeah, you know, uh, those are your two last
Speaker 1: or rigid songs of original music. Two thousand and two
Speaker 1: and twenty fifteen. Yeah maybe, uh wait, and for your
Speaker 1: three and twenty fourteen but yeah, and before this World
Speaker 1: was your first number one album? Yes it was. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Isn't it extraordinary? Well it is, although uh you know,
Speaker 1: nowadays album sales are are way off because people don't
Speaker 1: buy music really anymore in the same way. Still, come on,
Speaker 1: but it is no, it's remarkable. And what it really
Speaker 1: means is the record company finally did their job. And yeah,
Speaker 1: they finally you know, I just you know, I don't
Speaker 1: have very good things to say about the record business,
Speaker 1: but I do think that it's it's better. It's it's
Speaker 1: better to have thought have music exists in a commercial
Speaker 1: world than it is to have it. Um that it
Speaker 1: is to have it, uh, you know, to to to
Speaker 1: be dependent on the court like some minor aristocrat in
Speaker 1: Germany somewhere to sponsor you. Or the church. You know,
Speaker 1: those are the the church, the court and academia were
Speaker 1: the places where music used to happen. And and and the
Speaker 1: marketplace is better, you know, it's it's better. It's not great,
Speaker 1: but it's better. Wait, so what tell me what was
Speaker 1: happening in that gap? Had you were you were you
Speaker 1: giving up on songwriting? No, not at all. I've just
Speaker 1: been extremely busy. I made two albums of cover songs,
Speaker 1: songs that I that because I have this great band
Speaker 1: it's like a musical community, and I wanted to record them.
Speaker 1: And I built a studio on my property of a
Speaker 1: big room, big wooden room, um and uh, and we
Speaker 1: we recorded a couple of covers albums, so that was
Speaker 1: in there. Also a Christmas album was in there, which
Speaker 1: I always you know, just like you know, as as
Speaker 1: time goes by, your scruples kind of fall by the wayside,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, but the Christmas album was
Speaker 1: a delight to make, and I made it with Dave Grusin,
Speaker 1: who's a great composer and arranger, and he produced it
Speaker 1: and we just had a ball, you know. We So
Speaker 1: there were three albums that came out, and actually a
Speaker 1: fourth was the the album from I had a sort
Speaker 1: of theatrical piece that I did for a while just
Speaker 1: myself and a piano player called One Man Band, and
Speaker 1: we that we released that as an album as well.
Speaker 1: So there were really there were four projects, three or
Speaker 1: four projects between those two albums, and we were recording
Speaker 1: a lot. And then also, uh, you know, if you've
Speaker 1: got a family. If you have children, and you're going
Speaker 1: to pay any attention to him, you know you that
Speaker 1: that's a big demand on your time. And also just touring.
Speaker 1: Touring takes a lot of time too. Yeah, so really
Speaker 1: there was plenty going on. Yeah, one last thing and
Speaker 1: then I think we probably hum were you were you?
Speaker 1: Will you play something just to bring our delightful chat
Speaker 1: to a graceful close. You're up to you whatever you well.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this song what he
Speaker 1: got three wrote it. You know, he used to do
Speaker 1: commissioned songs. I think roll On Columbia, roll On Your
Speaker 1: power is turning our darkness to dawn. Roll On Columbia
Speaker 1: roll On was for the power company that built the
Speaker 1: damn on the Columbia River. Yeah, so he would, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and he was hounded by someone that he
Speaker 1: knew who belonged to an organization called the Ladies Auxiliary
Speaker 1: and um, and I guess that shut him up. There
Speaker 1: there's your song. Good. Thank you so much, James, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: Thanks to James Taylor for coming on Broken Record. His
Speaker 1: new album American Standard is out February twenty eight, and
Speaker 1: his new audio memoir breakshot is available on audible net.
Speaker 1: We can hear some of James's music on a playlist
Speaker 1: we put together for this episode at broken record podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason A. Gambrell,
Speaker 1: Milo Bell, and Lea Rose for Pushkin Industries. A theme
Speaker 1: music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.