ക JAMES TAYLOR, Fire & Rain|Carolina In My Mind|You've Got A Friend|Sweet Baby..|Handy Man|Up On The Roof|How Is The..|

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is a Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter and guitarist born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Carrboro, North Carolina. Taylor's career began in the mid-1960s, but he found his most devoted audience in the early 1970s, singing sensitive and introspective songs. He was part of a wave of singer-songwriters of the time that also included Cat Stevens, Carole King, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Tom Rush, and Jackson Browne, as well as Carly Simon, whom Taylor later married, although it did not last.

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone

Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you

I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song

I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again...

His 1976 album Greatest Hits was certified diamond and has sold more than 11 million copies. He has retained a large audience well into the 1990s and early 2000s, when some of his best-selling and most-awarded albums were released. Taylor signed to Warner Bros. Records and moved to California keeping Asher as his manager and record producer. His second album, Sweet Baby James, was a massive success, buoyed by the single "Fire and Rain," a song about his experience in psychiatric institutions and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr.

The success of this single and the album piqued interest in Taylor's first album, James Taylor, and propelled the album and the single, "Carolina in My Mind," back into the charts.

During the time Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. Also, 1971 saw the release of Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, another hit album.  He won a Grammy Award for his version of his friend Carole King's "You've Got a Friend".

This was followed by In the Pocket in 1976 and then a greatest hits album that included some re-recordings of Apple Records-era material. It became a huge hit and remains Taylor's best selling album. It was certified diamond, and to date has sold over 11 million copies.Taylor signed with Columbia Records and released JT in 1977 winning another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version of "Handy Man."

After collaborating with Art Garfunkel and briefly working on Broadway, Taylor took a two-year break, reappearing in 1979 with the cover-studded album Flag, featuring a Top 40 version of Gerry Goffin and Carole King's "Up on the Roof." Taylor also performed at the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden and appeared on the album and the film from the concert. [wikipedia]