Photo: Paul Keleher / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
James Taylor occupies a rare place in my listening life: he is the artist I reach for when everything else feels too loud. Fire and Rain is one of the most honest songs ever written about grief and survival, and his reading of Carole King's You've Got a Friend shows how a great interpreter can co-own a song. What strikes me is the durability — half a century of essentially whispering to audiences, yet he collected a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction without ever chasing trends. That quiet consistency, I think, is its own kind of radicalism in popular music.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- James Taylor
- Name (Japanese)
- ジェームス・テイラー
- Reading
- じぇーむす・ていらー
- Born
- March 12, 1948 (age 78)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Pisces / Rat
- Origin
- Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- Occupation
- singer-songwriter / writer / guitarist / recording artist / singer
2. Background
- High school
- Chapel Hill High School
Awards & achievements
- National Medal of Arts
- 2006 MusiCares Person of the Year
- 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom
- 2016 Kennedy Center Honors
- 1998 North Carolina Award for Fine Arts
- 2000 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Frequently asked questions
When was James Taylor born?
Born March 12, 1948 (age 78).
Where is James Taylor from?
James Taylor is from Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
What does James Taylor do?
James Taylor works as singer-songwriter, writer, guitarist, recording artist, singer.
Singer-songwriter — see all → · Writer — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-11
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.