James Taylor’s Greatest Hits: His 13 Top Tracks
Throughout his seven decades in the music business, James Taylor has turned to one thing in particular to stay motivated: “The audience, always,” he shared with AP News ahead of his 2024 tour. “I hope they take away a sense of connection. You know, live music — the thing that I’m so attached to about it, why I can’t let it go — is that there’s something [that] happens when people come together for a couple of hours…and have a sort of collective experience. It’s indescribable.”
Though the now 76-year-old artist has faced his share of challenges through the years, including substance abuse, bouts of depression and a painful divorce from Carly Simon — “My incredible loyalty to him, in spite of the fact that he has treated me without any regard, has been so painful to me for so long,” Simon recently told People — Taylor’s also thankful for his many blessings. Those include heaps of awards, including six Grammys and an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which noted that “his confessional singer-songwriter style paved the way for the likes of Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash.”
And the best news for fans is that he’s not ready to hang up his songwriting pen just yet. “I keep recorded notes, little scraps of music and ideas…when I get into a pre-writing phase,” he told USA Today, “and I’m due for one of those sessions. I’d like to think there is another batch of songs in [me].”
As do we! In the meantime, here are 13 of James Taylor’s greatest hits.
13. “Something in the Way She Moves” (1968)
“I was like a Chihuahua on methamphetamines. I was a jumpy young man,” Taylor told NPR of playing in front of Paul McCartney and George Harrison before landing his recording contract on The Beatles’ Apple Records. He clearly impressed them: This early tune went on to inspire the first line of Harrison’s “Something” for the Fab Four.
12. “Your Smiling Face” (1977)
Feeling low? Take a listen to this musical happy pill! “‘Your Smiling Face’ is just a relentlessly cheerful and almost saccharine song,” Taylor admitted to Bluerailroad, but that’s why we love it! It’s a nice audio escape from all of life’s noise.
11. “Mexico” (1975)
Pack your bags and enjoy this nearly three-minute vacation of a track, featuring Graham Nash and David Crosby on backing vocals. No surprise that Jimmy Buffett covered this beachy, sunny hit in 1995.
10. “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” (1972)
This beautiful, plaintive ballad helped win Taylor a Best Male Pop Vocal Grammy when he rerecorded it for Michael “Dr. Sax” Brecker’s Nearness of You: The Ballad Book album in 2001. Sublime!
9. “Sweet Baby James” (1970)
This title track off his spectacular 1970 album was penned after his nephew’s birth, as the boy was named after him. “It gets pretty spiritual by the end. I think it’s my best song,” Taylor told Rolling Stone of the sentimental lullaby.
8. “Country Road” (1971)
Taylor puts this song, and some others he’s written, in the “agnostic spiritualism” genre, as he explained to Bluerailroad, noting it advocates “finding a way to relax. Just put your mind aside and be in the moment. Be without judgment, be without examination, analysis and question.”
7. “Mockingbird” (1974)
Carly Simon and her then-husband scored a No. 5 Billboard hit with this remake of Inez and Charlie Foxx’s 1963 original. Though their marriage ended, the popularity of this classic lives on. “I loved James the minute I saw him on the cover of Time magazine. And I will never love anyone again so much or in the same way,” Simon told The New York Times in 2015.
6. “Handy Man” (1977)
The singer won a Best Pop Vocal Performance Grammy for this Jimmy Jones remake and took it to No. 4 on the charts. He’s also had fun with it on social media in the past, posting “Handy Man” themed fix-it posts that covered everything from how to make buttons out of pennies to new tricks for removing one’s boots and shoes.
5. “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” (1975)
The artist “does this Marvin Gaye hit proud,” noted Cashbox of this No. 5 hit for Taylor, praising its tasteful orchestration and adding that he “puts an oh so mellow [vocal] coating to this surefire winner.”
4. “Shower the People” (1976)
Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel. American Songwriter calls this Taylor tune “almost Shakespearean,” praising it as a “universal love song rooted in Appalachia.” On it, Taylor offers “a plea for love [and] focuses on the action of love.” More of this, please.
3. “Carolina in My Mind” (1969)
“I missed my home in North Carolina,” Taylor told Rolling Stone of this dreamy and wistful gem, written early in his career while he was recording his first LP in London. “This [song] captured that feeling of being called away to another place,” he added.
2. “Fire and Rain” (1970)
“I’m surprised really at how durable it is … [and] the emotional connection it makes” with audiences, Taylor told NPR of his introspective No. 3 hit, which proved to be a cathartic writing process. “That song relieved a lot of sort of tension,” he said, adding that its creation “was actually a relief, like a laugh or a sigh.”
1. “You’ve Got a Friend” (1971)
Songwriter Carole King told the artist that this future Grammy-winning tune “was a response to ‘Fire and Rain,’” Taylor shared with Rolling Stone. “The chorus to ‘Fire and Rain’ is ‘I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.’ Carole’s response was, ‘Here’s your friend.’ As soon as I heard it, I wanted to play it.” Smart instincts: It became his only No. 1 hit.
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