Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409210043
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I can't help but think about that with him and identifying with it a little bit," Taylor said. "No matter what happened, he was forced into a position he hated being in."
It seems an odd pairing: Taylor, the poster boy for the introspective singer-songwriting movement of the early 1970s, and Cobain, poster boy for the abrasive grunge movement of 20 years later. Cobain led the band Nirvana.
But the similarities between their early careers is remarkable.
Both were young when they rocketed to fame. Taylor was 22. Cobain was 25. Both poured personal pain and bleak confession into their songwriting that helped define their respective eras of rock music. Both turned to heroin as their drugs of choice.
Taylor, 46, who will perform in concert Tuesday at the Roanoke Civic Center, discussed Cobain in a rare interview this summer with the Orange County (Calif.) Register.
"I feel tempted to talk about Kurt Cobain a little bit," he said. "I really dug his music. It seemed like that transition really hurt for him - becoming known, pre-empted, co-opted, public, all that stuff.
"To become a musician, especially a singer-songwriter, well, you don't do that if you have a thriving social life. You do it because there's an element of alienation in your life. For people like that to suddenly go from that kind of private existence to major public exposure can be a wrenching experience, to say the least.
"It's something that has to be survived. Some people celebrate it. They do it beautifully - Phil Collins or someone. Other people, it kills them, like Kurt Cobain. I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess."
The middle ground for Taylor began with a privileged upbringing split between a 28-room house near Chapel Hill, N.C., summers on affluent Martha's Vineyard along the coast of Massachusetts, and boarding school in Boston.
Taylor's father was a doctor from an established Southern family and the dean of the medical school at the University of North Carolina. His mother was trained as a soprano. He has three brothers and a sister.
His interest in music began in his teens. One of his friends on Martha's Vineyard was Danny Kortchmar, who became a longtime Taylor sideman and a session player for other rock artists.
When he was 16, he left school for a term to join his older brother's rock band, The Fabulous Corsairs, in North Carolina. When he returned to school in 1965, bouts with depression and suicidal thoughts landed him in a mental hospital.
He remained there for nine months and finished high school before moving to New York to join Kortchmar in forming a band, The Flying Machine. Taylor played guitar and sang in the group, which stayed together only a year. It was in New York where he also first started using heroin.
In 1968, he moved to London to escape the drug scene and to record some demo tapes of his songs. He took them to Apple Records, the label started by the Beatles. Producer Peter Asher, of the British duo Peter and Gordon, liked what he heard, as did Paul McCartney.
Apple released his debut solo album, "James Taylor," produced by Asher, but it was a commercial dud, despite the songs "Carolina On My Mind" and "Something in the Way She Moves" that later would become hits for Taylor.
In 1969, with Apple in legal trouble, he moved to Los Angeles with Asher and signed with Warner Brothers Records. His first Warner Brothers release in 1970, "Sweet Baby James," again produced by Asher, then made Taylor a star.
A string of albums followed: "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon" (1971) "One Man Dog" (1972), "Walking Man" (1974), "Gorilla" (1975), "In the Pocket" (1976), "Greatest Hits" (1976), "J.T." (1977), and so on. His last studio album was 1991's "New Moon Shine."
He married singer Carly Simon in 1972. They divorced 10 years later. By the mid-1980s, though, Taylor had left his personal and emotional problems behind. He was remarried in 1985 to actress Kathryn Walker.
In concert, he showed a renewed self-confidence. He continues to be a strong concert draw, although "J.T." was the last album for him that produced a major hit.
In some ways, he has endured better than other singer-songwriters of his generation. Joni Mitchell went avant-garde, Jackson Browne became political, Cat Stevens found religion, to name a few, but Taylor has played it safe.
Some say too safe. Commercially, it has ensured continuing success. Artistically, however, critics charge that he has been stagnant for 15 years - that he consistently cranks out new work that is craftsmanlike but fails to make any statement.
Maybe so, but maybe he prefers safe over the alternative.
Just ask Kurt Cobain.
JAMES TAYLOR: Tuesday, 8 p.m., Roanoke Civic Center. Tickets, $22.50, $25, available through TicketMaster outlets and the box office (981-1201). Shuttle buses begin at 6:45 p.m. from the Williamson Road parking garage.
by CNB