James Taylor
James Taylor
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)". 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 and came from a wealthy Southern family. Taylor is of English and Scottish descent from the Taylor family of the Montrose area, with the former being rooted in Massachusetts Bay Colony; his ancestors include Edmund Rice), an English colonist who co-founded Sudbury, Massachusetts. 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. 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). 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.
Early years
In 1951, Taylor and his family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, when Isaac took a job as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. They built a house in the Morgan Creek area off the present Morgan Creek Road, which was sparsely populated. Taylor later said, "Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, caused by local copper mining [Taylor's later song, "Copperline" was a nostalgic salute to that area where Taylor grew up], plus 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." James attended a public primary school in Chapel Hill. 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. Isaac Taylor later rose to become dean) of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971. Beginning in 1953, the Taylors spent summers on Martha's Vineyard.
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