Episode 648 - James Taylor
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fucking delics nice to uh talk to you it's mark maron this is wtf the podcast that i host out of my garage which is getting dusty man
Marc:I don't know what the hell I'm going to do.
Marc:Anyways, my guest today, James Taylor, on the nicotine gum.
Marc:Brothers, kindred spirits.
Marc:This conversation was something beyond anything I expected.
Marc:I can't even tell you how great I felt after this conversation.
Marc:The garage, man, I got to empty it.
Marc:I got to take it all out and put some of it back in.
Marc:I've been noticing this, and don't tell any of the people that are coming over, please.
Marc:But, you know, I clean, but I don't, you know, thoroughly clean.
Marc:I've dusted a bit.
Marc:But, you know, I've been at this in here for, what, five years?
Marc:Going over five years?
Marc:And shit comes and goes in this garage.
Marc:People come and go.
Marc:Stacks of things come and go.
Marc:I just haven't, you know, and things get hung up.
Marc:It's just...
Marc:I guess the point I'm trying to make, you know when you go to an old roadside museum or something, and the displays, they look a little beat up, they look a little dusty.
Marc:I mean, there was a time, I think, where this garage was just...
Marc:Beaming with a sort of, you know, cluttered intensity.
Marc:And now because it needs a thorough cleaning, it's sort of like, oh, there seems to be a bit of dust on that old baby in a jar exhibit.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:The presidential cup looks like that glass dome can use a bit of a cleaning.
Marc:Yeah, so already, there's a... Oh, God.
Marc:See, right there.
Marc:There's just like... And what is that?
Marc:Mostly skin?
Marc:Is that what they say dust is?
Marc:Mostly skin?
Marc:So, like, I've got... God knows.
Marc:I've got a lot of celebrity skin particles on a lot of stuff in here.
Marc:That was a little tip of the hat to Courtney Love.
Marc:I don't think that's where the title of that...
Marc:that album came from but nonetheless i do need to clean it and i've i've i'm gonna get some office space down the street very excited about it not gonna tip it too much but i just i got myself a little office so i can get the fuck out of the house and feel like i'm going to another place to do some work here's the problem and maybe some of you can relate to this
Marc:if you're self-employed, which I am, heavily self-employed, is that no matter what I do, my job is here for the most part.
Marc:I go do stand-up and stuff, but I work in the garage.
Marc:I come out here.
Marc:I interview people.
Marc:I get a lot of stuff sent to the show.
Marc:I get records, books, CDs, things.
Marc:It's like a radio station over here, a lot of unsolicited stuff, a lot of exciting stuff.
Marc:What you start to realize is that your work
Marc:you know, it starts to sort of even out with anything else you have to do in your house.
Marc:Like, you know, I had to go, I had to walk down to the shed down there that I moved.
Marc:I moved my little shed down there to get a pliers to, you know, to take the brass screw thing out of a mic here to record a thing.
Marc:So that is just the same as, you know, me doing some writing or me not necessarily interviewing a guest, but preparing to interview a guest is that doing my dishes and getting some writing done.
Marc:have equal status in my brain when you work where you live.
Marc:So that means when you sit down to work, you don't know whether you're gonna prioritize like, oh, I gotta make a cake for no fucking reason.
Marc:The distractions are there, but there are also things you have to do.
Marc:So that's the struggle of being self-employed.
Marc:So I've afforded myself
Marc:a very reasonable and practical office space that I'm gonna go down to so I can free up my fucking dining room from stacks of books, records, and CDs that I gotta go through, not complaining.
Marc:I'm also gonna be able to meet people there.
Marc:And it's very exciting for me to, for once in my life, go, hey, can you meet me at my office?
Marc:Let's talk at my office.
Marc:How's that sound?
Marc:Try that on.
Marc:Try that on in your head.
Marc:But maybe with the office, I can take the time to fucking thoroughly clean the garage exhibit.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:So look, we're still going through past episodes of WTF here trying to put together the big picture on the myth, the legend that is Warren Michaels as we lead up to my conversation with him.
Marc:Here's me and Amy Poehler from episode 183.
Marc:She actually was able to help me see him in a different light.
Marc:And even if it didn't stick, she enabled me to see him differently.
Guest:I know you've told this story, but you- Just one.
Marc:I've only met him once.
Guest:I know.
Marc:And he just was- You hated it.
Marc:No, I didn't hate it.
Marc:I think he really just wanted to teach me a lesson.
Guest:But you were close to doing Update, right?
Marc:Well, I mean, that was the talk, you know, but then like I'd heard other versions, like, you know, he was just using me to pressure Norm or whatever.
Marc:But he made me jump through a lot of hoops and it was all very exciting.
Marc:But I've seen as I get older, you know, like I read that book about, you know, the war for late night about the Conan O'Brien thing.
Marc:And he really is, you know, he appears in there occasionally and it's very Buddha like, you know, like he's very set.
Marc:He's Lorne Michaels, but he seemed more human to me in that book.
Guest:I have a very human relationship with him.
Guest:His relationship, I always had a theory that
Guest:he brought out a lot of daddy issues in people.
Guest:For everybody.
Guest:For everybody.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And the way you kind of reacted to him, not always, but it was sometimes indicative of how you had to deal with your own father.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because there would be, I would see things that to me in, you know, subjectively a moment that I didn't, that didn't trigger me in the same way I saw it trigger other people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he is a king of the kingdom.
Guest:You know, that is a kingdom of which he is king.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that doesn't really happen very much anymore where you get to see a king in his kingdom.
Marc:Talking to his subjects.
Guest:Talking to his subjects, yeah.
Marc:And he likes it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I liked it too.
Guest:I liked it.
Marc:The attention?
Guest:I liked the attention.
Guest:And I also just found him to be very fair at the end of the day.
Marc:In the sense of what?
Guest:I thought he was fair...
Guest:And again, this is my experience.
Guest:I know everyone's had many different experiences.
Guest:But I found him very fair in his creative decisions.
Guest:I always thought he was funny and smart and picked things that were funny and smart.
Guest:He fought for that.
Guest:I think he's a very loyal person.
Marc:To people he liked.
Marc:yes yeah yeah i mean hater told the story about how they were doing this sketch that was kind of weird and it was his first big sketch and you know and uh it was uh it was this he played vincent price and i can't remember what the sketch was but but hater was nervous going in to do his vincent price and apparently right before he went on lauren said why now
Marc:Which is sort of brilliant, but completely undermining.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:What a terrible thing to hear, right?
Marc:And it kind of fucked with him completely.
Marc:Amy and I talked about Lauren for about 15 minutes in that episode, and she actually has a really healthy perspective on his role in her life, which I don't, really.
Marc:You can check out that entire episode on Howl Premium.
Marc:It's episode 183.
Marc:So...
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, the more we go through this stuff, I could put together an entire series of episodes just on people talking about Lorne at my egging.
Marc:Did I mention James Taylor is here?
Marc:Now, look, this is one of those things where...
Marc:We all know James Taylor.
Marc:Did I ever think I would talk to James Taylor?
Marc:The opportunity came, and I'm like, James Taylor.
Marc:Fucking James Taylor is James Taylor, man.
Marc:Sweet Baby James, Mudslide, Slim, and the Blue Horizon.
Marc:Those are not little records.
Marc:Those are big fucking records, and they were part of my childhood.
Marc:Like, I remember, I told him this, I think.
Marc:I remember my parents, do you remember the first few records you saw as a kid that your parents had?
Marc:My parents had Sweet Baby James, and I saw the cover of that, and I knew that that guy was not necessarily a happy guy.
Marc:I knew that there was something up with that face.
Marc:And it sort of was intimidating.
Marc:It was intense.
Marc:I mean, the cover of Sweet Baby James, I guess some people were like, oh, look at this sweet man.
Marc:But I was like, oh, there's something dark in there.
Marc:And it kind of frightened me on a level that I didn't quite understand.
Marc:Not unlike the Janis Joplin Pearl cover.
Marc:She was so cute, so stunning.
Marc:And all I knew is she died from heroin.
Marc:I was like, how could that happen to that cute, stunning person?
Marc:But James Taylor, I was like, oh, something's going on in there.
Marc:But somehow or another, James Taylor got sort of kind of pushed aside in the cultural shelf as being James Taylor.
Marc:And he began to represent something very specific, but not necessarily something of my generation would be like, fucking James Taylor.
Marc:Taylor, man.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:James fucking Taylor.
Marc:Rock and roll.
Marc:Not something you hear in that town.
Marc:So I think I became victim to that when I got the opportunity to talk to James.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, he's got a new record out.
Marc:And it sounds a lot like James Taylor.
Marc:It's called Before This World.
Marc:It's available now.
Marc:It's a pretty classic James Taylor sounding record.
Marc:But when I was offered the opportunity, I'm like, yeah, of course, I'll talk to James Taylor.
Marc:It's got to be a story.
Marc:He's been around a long time.
Marc:And I'll tell you, man, I was nervous about it because I didn't know if he talked.
Marc:I didn't know where he was at or who he was.
Marc:I don't know a lot of times what people sound like or how they handle themselves.
Marc:So it was sort of a mystery to me, but I was excited about it.
Marc:And when he showed up,
Marc:I was out here in the garage, and I got a guy working for me part-time.
Marc:Frank, he comes out, he says, they're here, and I walk in.
Marc:And this has never happened before.
Marc:I got a guitar in the living room that I dick around on.
Marc:I like to have a guitar around for when I'm watching TV and when I just want to play with a record or something.
Marc:And I walk into the living room, and this is the first time this ever happened.
Marc:James Taylor is just sitting quietly on my couch, plunking away on my guitar.
Marc:which I, like, I love a guy that just can't not play a guitar.
Marc:I know some people who have guitars are, you know, their first insults.
Marc:It's like, yeah, could you, are your hands clean?
Marc:Could you put the guitar down?
Marc:But me, I'm like, that's a guy that has to play guitar.
Marc:And I thought it was very charming, and it gave me a very good sense of him, just sort of like, just sitting there, playing a guitar, because there was a guitar to play.
Marc:It's like, I'm not going to talk, I'm going to play a guitar.
Marc:And then we come out here,
Marc:And he picks up this old beat-up K that I have, this garbage guitar that is kind of a great guitar.
Marc:And he starts playing that.
Marc:And I was like, this guy cannot not play guitar.
Marc:And I like that because that's a relationship that's very important to him.
Marc:And sadly, because we had such a great conversation...
Marc:I didn't ask him to play guitar or sing.
Marc:He didn't bring his guitar, so I just assumed maybe he wasn't into it.
Marc:But I probably could have asked him, but I tell you, I got lost in this conversation, and I love talking to James Taylor.
Marc:Now look, before I go to the interview with James Taylor, I want to tell you about this music you're about to hear.
Marc:This is by an Australian musician named Gerard Daly.
Marc:He was at my show in Melbourne, and he had such a good time, he wrote this song about it the next morning.
Marc:I found it very touching.
Marc:You can check out the song on his SoundCloud page, soundcloud.com slash Gerard M. Daly.
Marc:That's G-E-R-A-R-D-M-D-A-L-E-Y.
Marc:And the song is called One of Those Nights.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:James Taylor's here.
Marc:I have to say that you are the only guy, and I'm happy you did it, that I've had over who plays music that cannot help but pick up a guitar.
Guest:Well, it's nice.
Guest:I used to play a Gibson in the beginning.
Marc:The 335?
Guest:Not that one, but, you know, a Gibson guitar.
Marc:Acoustic, a J50.
Marc:A J50.
Marc:That was your first acoustic?
Yeah.
Guest:It was my second acoustic.
Guest:My first was a sort of no-name guitar that I bought at Shermer Music in New York City, or more accurately, my folks bought it for me when I hounded them into buying me a guitar.
Marc:Was it your first instrument?
Guest:I had played cello for four years between the ages of 8 and 12.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you have an aptitude for it?
Guest:No, I wasn't particularly a good cello player.
Marc:You had to let that go?
Guest:Well, I picked it up again recently.
Guest:I got a cello, and so it comes in fits and starts.
Guest:I'll play it for a few months and get some chops back on it and then let it slide again.
Guest:But no, I switched over to the guitar when I was 12, and for the same reason we all did.
Marc:Right, because it's a more practical instrument that you can play on your own and still be entertaining to yourself and others.
Guest:That's right, and it speaks back to you really quickly, and it's good for accompanying you.
Marc:It speaks back to you.
Marc:That's an interesting way of putting it, that you have an immediate relationship with a guitar and what it can do and what you can do and what you can do to get what you're feeling out through it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And that's the point with any instrument.
Guest:That's sort of the magic point at which you can't put it down when it starts really giving you what you want to hear.
Marc:It took me a long time to realize that virtuosity is not necessarily relevant to getting what you need to get across.
Guest:That's a really good point.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:I'm a very practical player.
Guest:I have a vernacular, like a vocabulary on the guitar that has expanded over time, but that really suits me as a songwriter.
Marc:Well, you learned how to finger pick at some point.
Marc:I mean, you're good at it.
Guest:Yeah, I always have finger pick.
Marc:And did you earn it from somebody?
Guest:You know, I picked it up from a lot of different people.
Guest:There used to be this guy named Travis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Merle Travis, who had this thing called Travis Picking.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It was sort of a rolling kind of walking bass with your thumb and playing on top of it.
Guest:And he and an old...
Guest:Elizabeth Cotton, an old blues player from North Carolina, they had this, and a guy named Joseph Spence, who made this fantastic record called Music of the Bahamas.
Guest:Joseph Spence, Elizabeth Cotton, and Merle Travis were the people that inspired me.
Guest:And, of course, forever to me, Rye Cooter is the epitome of fingerpicking.
Marc:He's sort of a wizard of all sorts.
Guest:Yeah, he's like a musicologist or at least something else.
Marc:I just talked to Keith Richards, and Keith credits Rye with that open five-string tuning that he does.
Marc:Do you know Rye?
Marc:Are you friends with him?
Guest:I've met him a couple of times.
Guest:He played on the title track to the October Road album and played beautifully.
Marc:That was a few albums back.
Guest:It was the last one.
Guest:Well, it was a few albums back, but it was the one before this present album, before This World.
Guest:October Road was the release sometime, I think, in 03 or 02.
Guest:It was the last studio album of original material, yeah.
Marc:And when you play with somebody like Rye, who having respected him over so many years and maybe met him once or twice, is it just like, are you like a kid in the studio watching that guy work?
Guest:I have such huge respect and admiration for the man that it is a little bit daunting.
Guest:And, you know, he's a great cat and always an enthusiast, but can be a little crusty too.
Guest:So, you know, it's interesting.
Marc:My buddy owns a record store down around the corner, a used record store.
Marc:And I don't know if it was this one or the one in New York, but he thinks that Ry Cooter came in, looked through the bins and came up to him and said, how come the Ry Cooter albums are so cheap?
Marc:My friend said, I don't think he's really caught on yet as a revival artist.
Marc:And so if that was him, he can be crusty.
Marc:And I think some guys who are certainly some guys who are geniuses that may not get their due respect-wise from the public might get a little crusty.
Guest:Yeah, you can't blame him.
Guest:Nope, nope.
Guest:But I think Rye is among musicians.
Guest:He's so universally respected.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:Paradise and Lunch transformed me, that album.
Marc:How did it transform you?
Guest:I just played that album all the time, and I just loved what he was doing with the guitar.
Marc:What year was that?
Guest:72.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:So early on.
Guest:71.
Marc:And what brought you to music initially?
Marc:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And my brother, Alex, was, you know, we had a family record collection that was really fantastic.
Guest:My folks used to play that music all the time.
Guest:I can't stress to people how important it is what music you play for your kids.
Marc:Yeah, what'd you get?
Guest:Man, we got a really wide spectrum of stuff.
Guest:We got a lot of Broadway, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Rodgers and Hammerston and Cole Porter and Frank Lesser.
Guest:But we also got things like The Weavers and Pete Seeger.
Guest:We got Lead Belly.
Guest:My father bought Lead Belly albums.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you had all that stuff.
Marc:I mean, Lead Belly's important, man.
Guest:And then we got a lot of Celtic music.
Marc:Is that a family tradition?
Marc:Not so much.
Guest:It's just what they liked.
Guest:They were into it.
Guest:Yeah, they were into it.
Guest:And there were light classics and jazz.
Guest:And there was a satirical kind of songwriter named...
Guest:uh lair tom lair tom lair yeah from uh boston from mit yeah and and we played his album all the time too so he got some laughs got some laughs and it also sort of opened us up to uh you know that kind of uh slightly political or you know socially uh motivated music you know and and how many kids were in your family
Guest:There were five of us.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I know, like, I went to college in Boston.
Marc:I lived in Boston, I don't know, not for years.
Marc:So Livingston Taylor, your brother, was sort of ever-present, always present in the New England area.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Playing music.
Marc:And your other sibs, did they play?
Guest:Yeah, they did.
Guest:My older brother, Alex, he started a band when we were in high school in Chapel Hill.
Marc:And he was one older than you, or are you the second one in?
Guest:Yeah, I'm the second one in.
Guest:He was the eldest, just a year older than I. And he exposed me to the sort of second tier of my musical world.
Marc:You need that guy.
Marc:You need the older brother.
Guest:You need the older brother, and he was so into, you know, I think he got into it through beach music, the beach music scene, but he deeply got into soul music in the South and would make these long trips to listen to various artists, Don Covey, Joe Tex.
Guest:Joe Tex, that's deep stuff.
Guest:uh yeah he's heavy man and and uh would listen to uh you know jimmy reed and oh yeah jimmy reed and uh big boss man yeah yeah and and uh but also ray charles and uh uh you know uh jackie wilson and he he exposed me to a lot of stuff um that was important and and then we we played in a band together and played a lot of those songs you know
Marc:Sure, I mean, you can hear that.
Marc:I mean, you did, what was that big hit you had?
Marc:Steamroller?
Marc:Was it Steamroller?
Marc:Steamroller, yeah.
Marc:That's almost like a Jimmy Reed tune.
Guest:You know, it's a 12-bar blues.
Guest:You know, it's a satire.
Guest:It's a spoof, you know.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Of what, that type of song?
Marc:Yeah, well, of... But so many of those songs are really like that.
Guest:Well, yeah, but, you know, it's one thing to be Muddy Waters singing I'm a Man, and it's another thing to be a pimply white adolescent singing I'm a Man.
Guest:So that's what the joke was.
Guest:Okay.
Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you're growing up in Chapel Hill, and what's your old man do?
Guest:My father's a doctor.
Guest:Still?
Guest:No, he's gone now, but he moved us down in 1951 in a 1950 Plymouth station wagon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He drove my brother and I down, and my mom took the train with the little ones.
Guest:And we moved to Carrboro, North Carolina, which was the home of Elizabeth Cotton.
Guest:I don't know if she was there then or not, but that was 51.
Guest:And he started working for the University of North Carolina as a staff doctor.
Guest:He taught medicine for a while and ended up being the dean of the medical school there and basically building the medical school with a couple of other...
Guest:Early guys.
Marc:What type of doctor?
Guest:He was an internist originally and did some research, too.
Guest:But he got into medical administration and was sort of more interested in building the school.
Marc:Yeah, I grew up... My father was a doctor.
Marc:It's always good to have a doctor around...
Guest:I don't know what it does.
Marc:What do you feel like it did to you?
Marc:I know what it did to me.
Marc:You know, you develop a sort of I do remember there was never a concern about getting to a doctor.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:A certain a certain detachment about your own health, maybe.
Marc:But also I found that they were kind of self-involved.
Marc:Well, my father was, you know, they were always on.
Marc:It always seemed that the work they were doing was very important.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that whatever emotional detachment he may have had was for the service of the bigger good.
Guest:Yes, that's right.
Guest:They were detached people.
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:I think surgeons are another level of that altogether.
Guest:That's what my dad was.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think they have to have a certain amount of self-assurance and an assumption that they can make these big decisions and that they're right in doing so.
Marc:Right, without thinking too much about it.
Guest:Or else it would drive them crazy.
Marc:Yeah, or you're just going to have to go in and cut and hack and do what you've got to do.
Guest:Right, that's right.
Marc:Did you get along with them?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I loved my dad, and he was really good to me.
Guest:But he was, in many ways, not a happy person.
Guest:Our family sort of came off the rails in the late 60s.
Guest:My mom and dad split up.
Guest:Oh, they did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It just was... It happened in a period of about two years, you know.
Guest:My brother Alex, who's dead now and died of alcohol, he started to... You know, he started on a path of real self-destruction.
Guest:My folks' breakup was...
Guest:You know, it happens so frequently that you think of it as being routine, but it's a big deal.
Marc:Especially in that era, it was not that common necessarily.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I ended up in a psychiatric hospital and was followed by the next two siblings.
Marc:This was before you even started professionally playing and everything?
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:It was in my senior year of high school.
Marc:What were you suffering from?
Guest:It was called depression.
Guest:It was like just a common teenage angst, but it felt pretty, you know, I was impressed.
Guest:Were you suicidal?
Marc:Suicidal, yeah.
Marc:And do you attribute the divorce to that, or do you look back in whatever your experience, which has been harrowing at times, do you see it as a chemical problem?
Guest:Well, I think, yeah, I think it may have been a combination of... I mean, I think we are, you know, our brains are a chemical process.
Guest:And I think we're evolutionarily predisposed to a certain kind of life.
Guest:And if we're removed from that...
Guest:It can be difficult, but it's just that particular time, that passage of late adolescence or mid-adolescence can be a very harrowing time of trying to, just a vulnerable time where you're trying to find your way and figure out who you're going to be in the world and if there's a place for you and you're being delivered this body and metabolism and mind that you were really born with in a sense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then for me, self-medication started when I went to New York and started playing rock and roll.
Marc:So after you got out of the hospital, and also I think when you're sensitive, it doesn't make it any easier.
Marc:When you feel things deeply, I think some people are a little more equipped sometimes.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, I think some people do have a sort of a more positive assumption about life, you know?
Marc:Yeah, those people.
Guest:And, you know, and that's great.
Guest:You know, God bless them.
Guest:And also, I think people have faith that their families sort of indoctrinate them in.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:They're little, and it goes beyond just the religion there, and it also has to do with how they seem to feel about the world.
Marc:Yeah, a whole point of view, perspective.
Marc:So you were not given any of that.
Guest:Well, you know, I think I was given other things, but I was, you know, I just had that, what felt to me like a pretty extreme version of that teenage vulnerability and anxiety.
Guest:And a heavy heart?
Guest:You know, maybe so.
Guest:And at the same time, both the culture in the late 60s and my family were sort of coming unglued, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it was an interesting passage for me.
Guest:I felt as though checking into the psychiatric hospital and spending my college fund in about six months, it gave me permission to go do whatever I wanted.
Marc:Your father signed off on that?
Marc:You decided on your own that I'm going to check into a hospital because I got problems?
Marc:Where were you?
Marc:Your parents were that chaotic that they weren't part of that?
Guest:They didn't really notice.
Guest:Other people noticed.
Marc:But when you decided to go in, what did your dad say?
Guest:Well, you know, the first thing is people who knew my family well and teachers at the school I was trying to stay in, they said, you know, we think that James ought to talk to somebody.
Guest:So they sent me to someone at Children's Hospital, and the guy said, well, I want you to go to McLean's for...
Guest:You know, he was concerned and he said, I want you to go to McLean Hospital for some observation.
Marc:So you had to go up to New England to do it.
Guest:No, I was at New England at the time.
Guest:I'd been sent to a boarding school.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Milton Academy.
Marc:Oh, Milton Academy.
Marc:I went to Curry College, which is down the street.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Marc:I know, Milton.
Marc:Right on the border of Mattapan.
Marc:Yes, that's right.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Oh, so you're at that prep school, losing your mind, being depressed, and they send you over to the best psychiatric hospital in the country at the time, I believe.
Marc:I think they did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And my folks were, as I said, they were preoccupied with other things going on.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I think it's a time when you really need, when young people need their families to sort of support them into adulthood.
Marc:Give them some tools.
Guest:Give them some tools, but also some support and some guidance and just let them know that they're watching them.
Guest:You didn't feel that.
Guest:No, I don't think we did, really, because I think they really were, they had their hands completely filled.
Guest:My father was alcoholic, and I think things were really... Oh, was he?
Guest:Yeah, they were overwhelming him.
Marc:What form?
Guest:Was he violent or just... No, no, he was, you know, as functioning an alcoholic as you could hope to find, and a loving person, really.
Marc:But you had it in your family.
Guest:But it was in there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's in there.
Guest:Good.
Guest:It killed my brother.
Guest:No question.
Guest:Took him right out.
Marc:And did he try to get clean at different times?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But there just wasn't enough on the other side of life.
Marc:It's brutal, dude.
Marc:I got 16 years sober.
Marc:I know.
Marc:There are days where you're like, what's the point?
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And I guess that's where music came in, huh?
Guest:You know, yeah, music did really did solve a lot of, you know, it just spoke to me and I was, you know, kids don't need much.
Guest:Young people don't need much to feel as though they have an anchor in the world and that they're a go, you know, like there is some way forward for them.
Marc:Well, when you moved to New York, you were fresh out of the hospital, you know, and you had your finger picking in place or what?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I'd written some songs and I was starting to write more.
Marc:Were you a solo act?
Guest:No, I had worked with a friend of mine that I knew from... See, my mom was the daughter of a New England fisherman.
Guest:And she came from Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And she – when my dad moved to Seoul, she met my father when he was at Mass General as an intern.
Guest:And he then – when four of us were born in New England and he was coming into making a decision about how he was going to actually practice –
Guest:and what his gig was going to be, he decided to move back to North Carolina.
Guest:He was from there?
Guest:He was from there.
Guest:He was from Morganton, North Carolina.
Marc:Southern boy.
Guest:Yes, the Southern boy, a sort of Faulknerian tale of a very heavy and impossible childhood, really, for my dad.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:A very hard story to tell.
Guest:Yeah, very Faulknerian kind of thing.
Marc:Did you have a relationship with that side of the family?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:Not really.
Guest:That was also a very hard story.
Guest:Well, you know, everything's relative.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But everything's relatives, as they say.
Guest:But as Einstein's brother-in-law used to say, the thing is, my mom met my dad, and every...
Guest:Every chance she got, she tried to sort of save us from North Carolina, you know, as it were.
Guest:She was afraid we were going to attach down there, that we'd absorb the local zeitgeist, that we would basically become of that place.
Marc:The worst idea of the South, perhaps.
Guest:I think...
Marc:Because it's beautiful down there.
Guest:I think she was alarmed by... She was on the picket lines.
Guest:She was sitting in in restaurants that were trying to integrate.
Guest:She would bring us from North Carolina up to New York to see some plays.
Guest:She would...
Guest:enroll us in various programs that got us out in the summertime.
Guest:She drove the whole family up to Martha's Vineyard, which in those days was not a millionaire's ghetto.
Guest:It was a cheap, sort of progressive place for families to, you know, sort of academics and artists to hang out from the Eastern Seaboard.
Guest:So she would take us up there every summer and rent a house, and we had a little place with no electricity.
Guest:We camped out.
Guest:We had the best time in the world.
Guest:But my point was that I, you know, on the vineyard is one of the places where I got into music because there was a great coffee house there called the Moon Custer that was associated with the Club 47 in Cambridge.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And there was great music there.
Guest:And there was an open mic night.
Guest:There were places to play.
Guest:And I met my friend Danny Korchmar there, who was from Maranek, New York, from Westchester.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he really, he was the third level of my musical career.
Guest:Education.
Marc:But like forever, like you've been working with him forever.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So we played our first gigs together when he was 17 and I was 15.
Guest:And then we started the flying machine together after I got on a McLean's.
Guest:I went down to New York with a friend of mine, my best friend, oldest friend, Zach Wiesner.
Guest:We went down to New York City and along with a drummer that Cooch knew who happened to be a heroin addict.
Guest:yet another stage in my education but non-musical no musical as well yeah joel o'brien was was a fantastic drummer but uh also a just a a consumed enthusiast about music and he he introduced me to latin music to brazilian music to another whole layer of rhythm and blues to to country music to sinatra no kidding yeah and heroin and heroin yeah so you know
Guest:And unfortunately, I was one of these adolescent ouch cubes sort of cringing across the landscape.
Guest:And when I found heroin, I was just gone.
Guest:Relief.
Guest:Relief.
Guest:So with me, I wasn't seeking ecstasy or oblivion.
Guest:I was just looking to get normal.
Marc:Believe me, I know exactly what you're saying.
Marc:The discomfort of anxiety and dread and panic and being too sensitive in the world.
Marc:So I imagine that given a few weeks with heroin, you're like, oh my God, you could breathe.
Guest:Yeah, it's true.
Guest:It's sad, but true.
Guest:And I think it's an epidemic in our country today, and a lot of people are feeling that.
Guest:But the way I felt about it was that, the way I've come to feel about it is that I was probably...
Guest:You know, like rowing of some Viking boat across the seas in a former life.
Guest:And, you know, when you sit me down in a sort of suburban context, I just, you know, my nervous system and my body and my entire...
Guest:wiring is just not ready for it.
Guest:I'm ready for something else.
Guest:I'm ready for crisis.
Guest:I'm ready for war.
Guest:I'm ready to battle the elements or to raid villages or something or defend villages, but I'm not comfortable on the couch watching baseball.
Marc:But you didn't grow up in chaos, really, until late adolescence, right?
Marc:I mean, most of your childhood was repressed in a way, I would imagine.
Guest:I don't mean to make it seem like too much of a Faulkner novel.
Guest:It was a fantastic, most of it was fantastic.
Guest:We just came off the tracks in the late 60s with the rest of the culture at the same time.
Marc:And you had this amazing mom who wanted to expose you to everything glorious about the arts.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:And then meeting Danny and O'Brien and your best friend and going to New York.
Marc:It's weird with drugs in the sense that there is a price to pay for your amazing worldly education sometimes.
Marc:And I think sometimes, whether it was for relief or what, the drug culture at that time was what it was, right?
Guest:yes it was it was nobody knew what what was on the other side you know and it just seemed like you know i was living until the end of the week i had no idea about there being a future about uh this is with the flying machine yeah this is with the flying and that was a door for you two guitars a bass and a drum well uh yeah guitar bass and drum that's right two guitars bass and drums exactly
Marc:And that, well, I imagine not unlike we spoke at the beginning about how a guitar speaks to you.
Marc:I imagine the way heroin speaks to you over a time is a shitty dialogue because it doesn't leave you much choice.
Marc:And I know it was a lifetime struggle.
Marc:But what...
Marc:How did your musical style evolve?
Marc:Did you find that with the dope that informed the laid-backness that initially came over you?
Marc:Did you find that now that you're past dope and past all that stuff, do you attribute any of your groove to drug culture?
Guest:No, none at all.
Guest:I feel as though I was self-medicating.
Guest:I was looking to get normal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not looking to get high.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I've written a lot of recovery songs since I've been in recovery.
Guest:How long you got?
Guest:32 years now.
Marc:Congratulations.
Marc:Oh, it's a beautiful thing, right?
Guest:it is a wonderful thing i mean yeah you know i can't uh sure i can't you know be uh presume that it that it's uh that i'm there right you know because it's yeah it's waiting yeah i know i have had a slip so oh have you how long ago was that about uh 12 years ago oh yeah i'm what uh you know painkiller regular painkillers yeah yeah sure sure after a surgery yeah that's what that's what happens man that's what you know it's like i remember that feeling yeah i
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Terrible.
Marc:Well, good.
Marc:I'm glad you got past it.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:So when did you shift from the band to solo?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:Well, the Flying Machine, you know, in those days it was record or die.
Guest:And we signed to, we got a couple of people interested in us who were, I guess they were music publishers.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And unfortunately, I signed away my publishing for that non-deal, as it were.
Guest:But we signed to these guys, and they were supposed to put us in the studio.
Guest:And in fact, we spent two days in the studio.
Guest:And then they told us this isn't happening.
Guest:But the paper I signed came back to haunt me.
Guest:And also, after Sweet Baby James came out and I had some success, they found all the old, you know, half-baked shit that we did in the studio in those two days and they just released all of it.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:On the Flying Machine album?
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:It's a bootleg and it's a boondoggle and it's a piece of crap.
Guest:It's out in the world, though?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I sign three or four of them a day when I'm on the road.
Marc:Oh, so you don't mind doing that?
Marc:I don't mind signing them.
Marc:Do you tell the person, it's like, you know, I don't condone this.
Marc:Do you see it more as a relic?
Guest:I don't really.
Guest:I occasionally tell people, you don't actually listen to this, do you?
Marc:Right.
Marc:So they had you up through the first James Taylor record and Sweet Baby James, the publishing deal?
Guest:They had me until One Man Dog.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So they just took my publishing.
Marc:And you never got it back?
Guest:I got 50% of it back after a certain point.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Well, that resentment alone would fuel an ongoing drug addiction.
Guest:Well, you know, there are so many stories of people being ripped off of musicians, particularly writers.
Guest:And, you know, Bonnie Raitt has the Rhythm and Blues Foundation along with a guy named Howell Beagle.
Guest:and they've done as much as they can to redress some of that, but it was just assumed that if someone allowed you to record, they were going to take all the money.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You got to record your music, they'll take the money.
Marc:Right, and that was just the way it was.
Guest:Yeah, that's the way it was.
Guest:I felt as though I have my own personal version of that story.
Guest:I think a lot of people do.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Oh, no, I've heard it before in here.
Marc:So when you did the first James Taylor record, which was solo, how did that come about?
Marc:I mean, before Sweet Baby James?
Marc:Because that was really the first time I ever saw you, is my parents...
Marc:Had the album, Sweet Baby James, and I'd see your face, and I'd listen to the record, but I'm talking, I'm like eight, nine years old, seven years old, and I would see that face, and it was a very intense album cover, that cover.
Marc:I couldn't tell if that guy was a happy guy, if he was a mysterious guy.
Marc:What was going on with that guy?
Marc:It was sort of a haunting cover to me as a child, and I mean no disrespect.
Guest:No, no, not at all.
Guest:Are you on Nicotine, too?
Guest:I have a little bit of... I'm doing this.
Guest:Nicotine gum problem.
Guest:These are the lozenges.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Isn't it an absurd addiction to chew nicotine gum?
Guest:All I can say is the president also chewed nicotine gum, so I feel as though I have a brother.
Guest:It's not heroin.
Guest:It's not heroin.
Guest:It may lead.
Guest:No, it can't.
Guest:It may lead to not brushing your teeth.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:It might give you a little TMJ.
Marc:Yeah, but that's why I got off the gum.
Marc:I was putting my teeth through havoc.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So I just do these lozenges, and you can get a pretty good buzz going.
Marc:So, you know, that's nice.
Marc:It's on the level, dude.
Marc:It's on the level.
Marc:It is.
Marc:I got off him for six months, and you know that discomfort you were talking about?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, it comes right back.
Marc:I'll tell you.
Guest:I'll tell you.
Guest:That sense of physical anxiety that follows opiate withdrawal, and that is basically the heart of it, the way I...
Guest:Got my body back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was three hours a day of absolutely Olympic training.
Guest:I mean, I just at the age of 35 threw myself into exercise in a way that, you know, for the endorphins.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the only way I could stand to live in my own skin.
Guest:Do you still do it?
Guest:I backed off it somewhat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I still need it.
Marc:I've exercised in my life, but never enough to get that addiction thing going.
Marc:I really would like to do that.
Marc:I mean, I'm going to be 52, and I've exercised in my life, and I've gone through periods of it, but I never am like, where's this high?
Marc:Maybe I've got to go further.
Marc:I've got to go harder.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:I never got the payoff.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:You've got to go.
Guest:You have to find the thing you like to do.
Guest:What did you like?
Guest:Running?
Guest:There's a lot of things out there.
Guest:No, when I was in New York, I did aerobics classes.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:It sounds a little pathetic, but I did.
Guest:I used to go and just sweat, dance to disco music, whatever it was.
Marc:No shame in that.
Marc:People do the things at home with the videotapes now.
Marc:It's not aerobics.
Marc:It's a much more alpha aerobics, these workout videos now.
Marc:Gorillas jumping on things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, you know, it's sort of between AA meetings and exercise, group exercise, that was sort of my life.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it brought me through a period of time.
Guest:That's good, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're still active?
Guest:But then I got into, like, cross-country skate skiing.
Guest:I got into bike riding.
Guest:I got into long-distance hiking.
Guest:I got into, you know, paddle boarding.
Guest:I got into a whole bunch of stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's good.
Guest:You're fit.
Guest:I still, yeah.
Guest:I think it, you know, I overdid it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wore out a knee and I, you know, but generally speaking, I think it was my salvation.
Guest:Well, good.
Guest:And I think it was that it was like I channeled my inner Viking.
Marc:Yeah, the Viking.
Marc:You like the Viking.
Guest:I like the Viking.
Marc:Yeah, the Viking.
Marc:Yeah, and he did it.
Guest:I think I was meant to do it.
Guest:I think I'm meant to be physically active.
Marc:I don't think anyone would assume that necessarily, that James Taylor has an inner Viking.
Marc:I think we're all happy to know that.
Guest:Yeah, it's true.
Guest:I think that a lot of the early stuff that I wrote was supposed to sort of soothe me.
Marc:Work through the feelings, probably.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I think you were hinting at it.
Guest:It was sort of like musical heroin, musical palliative kind of thing, you know, therapeutic or something, you know.
Guest:And so I think people think of me that way.
Guest:But, you know, in fact, if you know my, you know, if you come to my show a lot, there's a lot of celebration in it.
Guest:There's a lot of energy in it, too.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, with the first record, what was the story behind that?
Guest:Well, the Apple album, as I said, the Flying Machine, our bass player quit, and we crashed.
Guest:And the band just disbanded.
Guest:So I was living in an apartment on the Upper West Side, which in those days, in the mid-60s, was kind of war zone.
Guest:And how strung out were you?
Guest:You were functional?
Guest:No, I was strung out.
Guest:And I was out of any source of money.
Guest:And I think that had I stayed in that apartment for the next couple of months, I might have gotten into some real trouble.
Guest:So I spoke to my dad.
Guest:My dad called me on the phone, and he said, you don't sound too good to me, James.
Guest:And I said, Dad, I can't lie to you.
Guest:I'm not doing so good.
Guest:He said, well, what's your address?
Guest:And I told him that I was on 84th in Amsterdam.
Guest:He said...
Guest:Stay right there.
Guest:And I mean right there.
Guest:Stay right there.
Guest:And 12 hours later, he showed up with a station wagon and took me back home.
Guest:There was a song I wrote called Jump Up Behind Me, which was written about that.
Guest:And it's like your mom has such a huge amount to do with who you are.
Guest:But your dad, you just need a, you can make a dad out of just three or four important points.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You can assemble a decent dad.
Guest:And that was a big one.
Marc:Was that song on Hourglass?
Marc:Which album was that?
Guest:It was on Hourglass.
Marc:Because that was like, we were pretty sober by then, but it was a pretty reflective record.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:But over time, I've gotten better and better at making these records and of having an idea of what the music is going to sound like and coming closer and closer to what that ideal is.
Guest:And that's another reason why I wanted to get back into the studio and make this album.
Guest:I don't know if it's the last.
Guest:Certainly, if I wait another 13 years, it's the last one that I'll make.
Guest:But
Guest:It's a real James Taylor record.
Guest:Yeah, I think it is.
Marc:And when you were driving down with your dad, I mean, were you sweating?
Marc:And, you know, did he know exactly what was going on?
Marc:And he exuded a certain level of support and understanding that was surprising?
Guest:You know, I just can't remember.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I slept through most of it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was, you know, I was malnourished and hadn't had any sleep.
Guest:And I just needed to hold up and rest for a long time.
Marc:But he showed up.
Guest:He showed up.
Marc:That's fucking beautiful, man.
Guest:He did show up.
Guest:He heard it.
Guest:He heard me and he came and got me.
Guest:And I'll never forget it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:So you got it together and then you went to England?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I spent about six months at home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't, you know, I clearly wasn't going to go to college.
Guest:And, you know...
Guest:Things were, I could see, were terrible at home, and just falling to pieces.
Guest:My mom and dad weren't communicating at all, and my brother Alex was in some bad trouble, and my younger brother and sister were in McLean's, and
Guest:And I stuck around for a while.
Guest:I still had a habit.
Guest:And, you know, I told my folks, listen, just take me to a trip to England and just enough money to get started over there.
Guest:I'm going to go and visit a friend.
Guest:I've got my songs.
Guest:I've got my guitar.
Guest:I went over and stayed with a friend that I'd known from the summer times on Martha's Vineyard, who was living in London at the time.
Guest:And I met some people who were enthusiastic about my music.
Guest:I made a demo.
Guest:I got back in touch with Danny Korchmar in New York, and I said, because I knew he had met Peter Asher, and I was trying to find people who might listen to my music.
Guest:The producer.
Guest:Yeah, and Peter had just taken a job as head of A&R.
Guest:An A&R person finds new talent for a record company.
Guest:For Apple?
Guest:For Apple Records, and they hadn't signed anyone yet.
Guest:They hadn't released anyone yet.
Marc:That's a Beatles label.
Guest:that was the beatles label uh peter heard my uh my songs he said uh let's go play them for uh for paul wow i played uh something in the way she moves for paul mccartney and george harrison and uh and george ripped off the line well i mean i had ripped off so many beatles songs i mean it hardly it was easy it was a fair trade it was a fair trade yeah indeed it was so uh um
Marc:uh uh you know we like to say uh yeah man i liked your song so much i went home and wrote it so you get to meet paul here you are the this this like shaky kid absolutely and he had these songs but you must have had everything that you have for for them to recognize that or i mean for peter to go like you know this guy's got something unique
Guest:Yeah, I think it was Peter who saw it, and Peter said, you know, Paul said to Peter, well, do you want to produce a record for this guy, and we'll release it?
Guest:And Peter said, yeah, I do.
Marc:What was it like meeting Paul and George?
Guest:You know, a little bit like The Second Coming.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Was John there, too, or was it mostly?
Guest:John was around.
Guest:They were all there.
Guest:Well, we were recording at, not at Abbey Road, but at Trident Studios, because Trident had the only...
Guest:a functioning eight-track recorder in England at the time.
Marc:And what were they recording?
Marc:The White Album.
Marc:So they were about at wit's end with each other, I imagine, by that point.
Guest:Well, they were still doing amazing work.
Guest:That's for sure, yeah.
Guest:And in between their marathon sessions, I'd come into the studio and we'd do a couple of...
Guest:And the drummer from Joel O'Brien came over to play drums on the song.
Guest:Oh, he did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I fell in love in London.
Guest:I had a great, great time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And so you jammed with the Beatles?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:did a little bit i played with the beatles uh paul and and george uh both uh um recorded on carolina in my mind um uh you know uh i was a fly on the wall when they were listening to playbacks for the white album and it was incredible it was incredible that's amazing it was amazing and that and carolina on my mind is a huge song it's a great song it's one it's a lot of people's favorite james taylor song
Guest:It's one of my favorites, yeah.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:So you do that, then why didn't you, did you stay at that label?
Guest:Well, what happened was about six months into the...
Guest:The experience, for some reason, Yoko and John were sort of, they were sweet-talked and seduced by a guy named Alan Klein.
Guest:The manager, right?
Guest:He became their manager, their first manager after Brian Epstein.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:And that was a mistake.
Guest:But Paul and George were not taken in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think it's one of the things that basically polarized them.
Guest:And they still did some beautiful work beyond that.
Guest:You know, let it be.
Guest:Let it be, yeah.
Guest:but that was it though right but but uh alan klein was only interested in beetles he didn't have any use for mary hopkin or bad finger or billy preston or james taylor or right any jackie lomax so he was put in charge of the label he was on a management level yeah okay and he just got rid of all of us well the the actual uh mechanism was that we asked for an audit and which was in our contract and he he just threw the contract out and we
Guest:And Peter said, well, we're out of here.
Guest:This well has gone dry.
Guest:Let's try Los Angeles.
Marc:And then he came out here to where it was all happening.
Marc:So you were on the edge of that.
Marc:There was a whole new singer-songwriter.
Marc:That was the original emergence of the modern singer-songwriter, right?
Marc:Where you get Crosby and Joni Mitchell and Jackson Brown a little later, I imagine, Neil Young.
Marc:So you come out here.
Marc:Are you part of that whole Laurel Canyon trip?
Marc:To a certain extent, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were you welcomed with open arms?
Marc:Were people like, that's James Taylor?
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, Sweet Baby James was a big hit.
Marc:So you came out after that?
Guest:No, I came out before that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the previous summer, I had been on the road for a while.
Guest:After I got back from London, I was strung out again, and I re-hospitalized to basically as a rehab.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was a place in Stockbridge, Massachusetts called Austin Riggs.
Guest:They weren't supposed to do that sort of work, but they did.
Marc:Because your dad stepped in, or...?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:In a sense, my dad asked somebody who recommended that as a place to go.
Guest:But I wasn't admitted as a heroin addict.
Guest:I was admitted as a psychiatric patient.
Guest:But the reason I was there was to get sober.
Marc:Now, you couldn't kick on your own, obviously, but were you trying or were you just surrendered to it by then?
Guest:You know, here's the thing.
Guest:Like I said, I was never sort of an abandoned hop head.
Guest:I was trying to function.
Guest:Right, I hear you.
Guest:And I did remain highly functional in spite of the fact that I also had an on and off habit coming and going.
Marc:And you weren't alone in that.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, it was not like you were some sort of freak in the communities you were running in.
Marc:It was fairly common.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you clean up.
Guest:I mean, so I cleaned up there in Austin Riggs.
Guest:This is pre-AA.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Methadone?
Guest:Yes, I did some methadone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did two...
Guest:Probably a combined five years on methadone.
Guest:And the other detoxes I went to were one at Gracie Square in New York City on the east side and another at a place called Silver Hills up in Connecticut.
Guest:I was always relatively functional.
Guest:And when I came out to the West Coast to spend time with Peter, we started casting about for people to record with.
Guest:And we found Carole King, we found Russ Kunkel, we found Lee Sklar, we found a guy named Bobby West who played the stand-up bass on Fire and Rain.
Guest:We found a pedal steel player named Dusty Rhodes, and we made that Sweet Baby James album in about three weeks for about $8,000.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:At Sunset Sound.
Guest:But one of the reasons it went so quickly was that all the material was available.
Guest:Because the summer before, in March, I'd gotten out of Austin Riggs.
Guest:I'd gone on the road for about five months.
Guest:And then I had a motorcycle accident, broke both my hands and both my feet.
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Guest:So I was in, you know, I missed Woodstock.
Guest:I was in Plaster.
Marc:Where'd you go back to Chapel Hill?
Guest:i went to martha's vineyard which is where i was living at the time after i got out of uh you know rehab i i went to the vineyard because that's what i knew so before sweet baby james you couldn't use your hands or your feet that's right and and i think that period of time really allowed me to finish some songs you know yeah get the lyrics yeah and uh so that when we went into the studio to make sweet baby james we we had everything yeah we had it was all ready to go and
Marc:You'd really thought about them.
Guest:And we had this great band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we knocked it out fast.
Guest:And then Fire and Rain took off.
Guest:And we hit the road.
Guest:And that's where I stayed.
Marc:That's a great feeling, man.
Marc:Fire and Rain was a huge song.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:It's a painful song.
Guest:You know, in a way, but I think it's not painful to listen to.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:I mean, there's a transcendent spirit to it.
Guest:For some people it is, I'm sure.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's one of those songs that can be played at a wedding or a funeral.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:I do.
Marc:So you're it now.
Marc:This is a huge record.
Marc:It went like triple platinum, right?
Marc:It was a big record.
Guest:It was.
Marc:And so you're a made guy in a way, and you're in Los Angeles, and you're hanging with Carole King and Joni Mitchell.
Marc:Did she sing on that one?
Guest:No, Joni and I, we got together after then.
Guest:You dated?
Guest:We lived together for a year.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:In Laurel Canyon?
Guest:In Laurel Canyon, largely, but also we traveled together a lot because we were both traveling all the time.
Guest:I made a movie called Tulane Blacktop.
Guest:Right.
Guest:An obscure film.
Marc:Was it Oates, Warren Oates?
Marc:Warren Oates.
Marc:Warren Oates and Dennis Wilson.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And the guy who directed it was... Monty Hellman.
Marc:Monty Hellman.
Marc:He made two movies.
Marc:He had Cockfighter and Tulane Blacktop.
Guest:And Ride the Whirlwind and I think another one called Riding Thumb.
Marc:Yeah, I saw Tulane Blacktop.
Marc:I had a re-release video of it.
Marc:It's one of those great sort of existential 70s movies.
Guest:You know, you have to be pretty relaxed to watch that film because, man, it is flat.
Guest:It is flat.
Guest:How did you get into that?
Guest:You know, somebody saw my picture, heard the record and said, let's give them a try.
Guest:So Peter thought, yeah, movies, that's a good next step.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:They signed me up and we did this.
Guest:I've never seen the film, though.
Guest:I couldn't stand to watch it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No, I never saw it.
Marc:But you've done a little acting as yourself more as a character over the years.
Guest:Here and there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Cameos.
Marc:But how long between Sweet Baby James and Mudslide Swim and the Blue Horizon?
Marc:Because that was the album that I played the most when I was a kid.
Marc:My parents had Sweet Baby James, but one of my cool friends' parents had Mudslide Swim and the Blue Horizon, and we used to play that on a cassette on the school bus.
Marc:We used to listen to that album, man.
Marc:I mean, when I knew I was going to interview you, I just started going through my head and started singing James Taylor songs to myself.
Marc:And it's weird how many you know.
Marc:Because I know Machine Gun Kelly.
Marc:I mean, that was one of my favorite songs on that record.
Marc:And it's not the ones that were hits necessarily.
Marc:But Machine Gun Kelly, I love that song.
Guest:Yeah, that's Cooch's song.
Guest:He wrote that.
Marc:Oh, did he?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:But on that record, you've got a friend, which is a Carole King song.
Marc:And you were very close with her.
Guest:yes carol and i uh we toured together we recorded together uh we never wrote together but um did you date nope we never professional we were never romantic we were never in bed together but great songwriter though huh but on the bus a lot together you know and on stage and yeah well that became a huge hit for you that you've got a friend huh it really did uh it was um it was my only number one single and uh uh it it really uh it was great
Marc:That's a great one.
Marc:And then, like, you did One Man Dog Walking Man Gorilla, which I remember, like, as a grown-up, kind of, 12-year-old.
Marc:Like, I can't... Like, when I interview musicians, you know, there's these moments I have where it's sort of like, oh, yeah, I like that song.
Marc:Oh, I like those songs.
Marc:Oh, that's a great album.
Marc:Those two albums are great.
Marc:And then you look online, you're like, they've done 30 records!
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:You know?
Marc:But, like, when I was looking at the stuff, it's...
Marc:There was never really... You always had a hit here and there.
Marc:I mean, there was not a tremendous wane for you.
Marc:I mean, all the way up until when you stopped for a few years, right?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's always been... It's interesting.
Guest:You know, it's always been... It's the nature of my audience and the nature of my distrust for the sort of...
Guest:The business side of it and the sort of celebrity thing, it seems so profoundly false and just stupid to me that I've had this very sort of level kind of touring existence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, maybe two bands.
Guest:And these are communities of musicians that I work with.
Guest:We travel together.
Guest:We play live.
Guest:We record together.
Guest:And that's the focus.
Guest:That's the thing.
Marc:The live show.
Guest:That and the audience.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, your audience is a very loyal audience.
Marc:I mean, this new record that you just put out, which is Before This World, was number one immediately, which really is a testament to the people that have stayed with you
Marc:Over, what, 40 years now?
Guest:It is.
Guest:45 years is a long time.
Marc:But I think that people are so emotionally connected to your tone, to your songs, to the feelings that you are able to sort of make people have, that not unlike any great artist, they look to you as a friend, and they look to you for some consistency.
Marc:And I think that's something that not all musicians have, that you do have, is that
Marc:a tremendous amount of quality and consistency to your work.
Guest:You know, I do think that there is value in continuing, you know.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:You know, and I... That's a very positive statement.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is.
Guest:You know, I think that...
Guest:It's important not to get swept away by the, you know, your own press or, you know, your people's idea that, you know, people telling you how important you are.
Guest:There's a thing, you know, I obviously had a...
Guest:childhood and an adolescence, a very happy childhood, a very troubled adolescence, which gave into a long period of addiction, which resolved itself kind of late in life.
Guest:And you know how it is.
Guest:If you're addicted, you don't make any headway in sort of learning how to live.
Guest:You
Marc:You just circle.
Marc:You just spiral.
Marc:You come in cycles.
Marc:Well, I mean, was it when you were married to Carly Simon, you guys did some great work together.
Marc:Was it the drugs that broke that down that really led to the end of that?
Guest:You know, it was really that I was I just wasn't suitable to a grown up.
Guest:I just wasn't a grown up.
Guest:I wasn't a decent husband.
Guest:It was an impossible project to take me on as a husband.
Marc:Well, what made you hit bottom to the point where you really grabbed it by the horns and did what was necessary?
Marc:Put your sobriety first and all the sayings.
Marc:And what hammered that home, really?
Marc:What series of events?
Marc:Other than age...
Guest:I think age had part of it and just was a part of it.
Guest:But I think that, you know, you just get sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Guest:You live the same day over and over again.
Guest:You lose a lot of friends.
Guest:You lose a lot of friends.
Guest:A lot of people died.
Guest:And my brother died.
Guest:And, you know, you have these jackpots where you're humiliated and mortified and just brought low by your disease.
Guest:It's embarrassing.
Guest:It's embarrassing.
Guest:Yeah, it's embarrassing and humiliating and mortifying.
Marc:And you were friends with Belushi, too, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:John was a close friend.
Marc:Down the vineyard?
Guest:On the vineyard and in New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, losing John was, you know, I have a song called That's Why I'm Here, and John's, the second verse is about John, and that it really, it woke me up a little bit to have him die.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I myself can count five times when I really should not have started breathing again.
Guest:And so as a result, I found myself addicted again and back in the cycle again when I promised myself I was free.
Guest:And I finally said, this is...
Guest:This is it.
Guest:I've got to get clean.
Guest:And I had a friend.
Guest:He's gone now.
Guest:Hep C circled back and got so many people 20 years after they got sober.
Marc:And now they got a cure for it.
Guest:Now they got a cure.
Guest:And he could have lived.
Marc:Just missed it, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he brought me in a sax player who played on a lot of my stuff, a genius named Michael Brecker.
Guest:And Brecker, I had seen him.
Guest:He's taller than I am, and he weighed 120 pounds, and I didn't think I'd see him again.
Guest:A year later, I bump into him, and he's like...
Guest:glowing with health and sort of pink and alive and cheerful and you know and just and I said wow what happened to you man he said well if you're really interested I got it get in touch yeah yeah and I did we're gonna go hang out yeah
Marc:A lot.
Guest:And he brought me along and a lot of other people, too.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The recovery Pied Piper.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:For a large community in New York.
Marc:Because if one of those guys, especially the guy that everyone thinks is going to die, shows up looking golden, then there's that moment where you're like, I want what he's got.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:If that guy can do it, I can do it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Well, that's a fucking beautiful story.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:It's my favorite story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how long ago did he pass?
Guest:uh michael died five years ago oh that's a shame but he died sober he did yeah indeed and uh good quality of life yeah he did yeah and i mean his his uh his children and his daughters and his his uh widow you know they miss him and we all miss him uh but but he did a lot he he really did a lot for a lot of people how many kids do you have
Guest:I've got four kids.
Guest:I've got Sally and Ben.
Guest:Sally's 41, and Ben is 38.
Guest:And Rufus and Henry are twins, and they're 14.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So you got from two marriages, and you get along with all of them?
Guest:You know, I don't really speak to the ex-wives very, very much.
Guest:I mean, Carly and I have two kids, but they're adults, and I can go straight to them now.
Marc:But you get along with them?
Guest:I do, but it wouldn't be... I'd be lying to say that we had a relationship.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I met Kim in... Your current wife.
Guest:Yeah, and my last wife and the person with whom I really finally found...
Guest:I was finally ready myself, and it's a miracle that she was available.
Guest:And she was working with the Boston Symphony.
Guest:I was doing a Boston Pops gig with John Williams, and she had, for years, had worked with Williams.
Guest:So I met her backstage a year and a half later.
Marc:Not good.
Guest:Doesn't sound good.
Guest:It kind of had an echo to it.
Marc:That definitely sounded like a gunshot.
Marc:did a big one too yeah not too far away you know should we go check on the people yeah should we vacate what happened oh i don't think so how where was it like right down the street what what what i don't know it just didn't sound right come on in sounded like a shotgun yeah it did
Marc:I don't think you should be worried.
Marc:You could go in the house, but staying out here, we're going to finish up soon.
Guest:That reminds me, I have an apartment in New York City on Central Park West between 73rd and 74th streets in a building called the Langham.
Guest:I lived on the sixth floor of that building.
Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And just outside my window between 72nd and 73rd was the Dakota.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And one night I was sitting in the window and I heard five shots, you know, five.
Guest:And it sounded to me like a 38.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh you drew and fired their gun that they emptied it yeah and always kept an empty cylinder under the under the hammer yeah uh so i i thought that it was a police shooting sure and uh um my uh peter asher's wife called me up uh and said uh that that was i was i was on the phone to her when i heard the shots and i said it's crazy here the the police just shot someone down the street and she said uh
Guest:She called me back 20 minutes later and said that was John.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was amazing.
Marc:That guy who shot him was a troubled, horrible person.
Guest:Yeah, I met the guy two days previous.
Guest:He had sort of buttonholed me coming out of the subway at 77th Street.
Marc:So he was lingering.
Guest:You know, he was hanging around.
Guest:Mark David Chapman.
Guest:yeah and uh and he was uh he was clearly uh possessed you know he he like uh attached himself to me as i was coming he knew who you were so they he said uh you know i've i've got i've been working on some some songs and uh and i man i need to talk to you i need to and i sort of scraped him off and and ducked into my building and and then it turned out oh and he did he went after john a day a day later god it's horrible yeah
Marc:Let's go back to the good story, the symphony, your current wife working at the symphony.
Guest:Yeah, so I met Kim then, but I remembered her.
Guest:I had had a watch, a pocket watch, and it went missing from the dressing room at the Boston Symphony.
Guest:I played in places where the dressing rooms were really, you didn't put anything down that you didn't want to have stolen.
Guest:I lost an iPhone like that.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And I figured it was safe backstage at the Boston Symphony, but my watch was stolen, I swear.
Guest:She denies it, but I think I made the whole thing up.
Guest:So I called her back the next day, and that's how I had her number.
Guest:So a year later, when my marriage that was...
Guest:I was separated at the time that I met her, but I was finally clear of it.
Guest:I called her up and asked if she wanted to get together, and she sort of said, no, not really.
Guest:And then I called her again six months later, and she agreed to come and meet me.
Guest:Because a friend of hers had said that I wasn't so bad after all.
Marc:And now it's like a timeless relationship.
Marc:Here's a watch tie-in.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And you found love, and you feel like it's the right thing, and you were ready for it.
Marc:It's a beautiful story, James.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I've written how many songs to Kim now?
Guest:I wrote Mean Old Man.
Guest:I wrote Caroline I See You.
Guest:That's her name.
Guest:It's Caroline.
Guest:I wrote You and I Again from this new album.
Guest:So she's the best thing to happen to me, really, since recovery.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, you know, I know you got to go, and it was a real honor to talk to you, and the new album's great, and you seem fit and in good shape, and I was flattered that you came in and played all my guitars.
Guest:Well, thanks, Mark.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:I hope we get a chance to hang out again at some point.
Marc:I'd love to.
Marc:When I come to New England, I'll come to your house.
Marc:I'll play your guitars.
Guest:All right.
Guest:That sounds good.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thanks, man.
All right.
Marc:What an amazing conversation.
Marc:I got to tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to James Taylor, and I feel like we could hang out again, have some tea or coffee, have some nicotine products, maybe play some guitars in his studio.
Marc:I love him.
Marc:It was a very nourishing and fulfilling conversation with a like-minded individual and a fucking legend.
Marc:I really enjoyed having James Taylor over.
Marc:That record is Before This World.
Marc:It's available now.
Marc:Hey, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Get the Howl Premium.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:So I have not prepared any guitar.
Marc:But I have it.
Marc:I got it.
Marc:I got it.
Yeah.
Marc:Boomer List.