Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Story

From Library Journal
Considering the drama in folksinger Taylor's life, this biography is curiously dull. Taylor was born into an affluent but dysfunctional family and spent his teen years on drugs, suicidal, and in and out of psychiatric hospitals. The only connection he could seem to make was with his music. But he made it big at the age of 22Awhen he was on the cover of TimeAand went on to become the hottest singer-songwriter of the 1970s. After falling into and out of love with Joni Mitchell, he married Carly Simon (also a complex and driven personality). The marriage was marred by Taylor's drug use and the infidelities of both spouses, and they eventually divorced. Though there are some interesting revelations here, Halperin's (Who Killed Kurt Cobain?) writing style is not engaging; the book reads like a compilation of old magazine articles. Interviews and quotes are used too liberally, giving the text a tabloid quality. Buy where demand warrants.ARosellen Brewer, Monterey Bay Area Cooperative Lib. Syst., Pacific Grove, CA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
The turbulent life, loves, and career of pop star James Taylor. With such classic hits as ``You've Got a Friend,'' ``Carolina on my Mind,'' ``Handyman,'' ``Mexico,'' and ``Fire and Rain,'' the venerable Taylor has been one of popular music's biggest stars since the late '60s, when he went to England to begin his recording career. As Halperin shows repeatedly, Taylor, who battled an addiction to heroin and other drugs for years, has not had an easy time of it. His story, however, hardly starts out as the saga of a tortured artist. He was born to Isaac and Trudy Taylor, a happy, loving couple who lived in an upper-middle-class region of Massachusetts, waiting to occupy a great deal of the biographers time. Halperin contends that the younger Taylor's self-destructive habits were inherited by the men in his family (James's older brother, Alex, also suffered from a heroin addiction, which eventually killed him). Halperin, glossing over Jamess normal teenage angst and his isolation from other young people, also makes a case, a much stronger one, that James began his descent into addiction when Isaac began to withdraw from his family. Whatever their cause, Jamess feelings of alienation would lead him into a mental hospital during his late teens. Even after Taylor's first taste of success, with 1970's Sweet Baby James, which landed him on the cover of Time in 1971, he would slip back into battles with drugs and alcohol. According to Halperin, those consistent transgressions into his old ways, together with their mutual jealousies, eventually destroyed his marriage to fellow pop star Carly Simon. Despite the amount of time Halperin spends on Taylor's considerable difficulties, the affection he has for Taylor's music, best exhibited by the interviews with fans that are scattered throughout the book, shines throughout. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Many musicians sing about heartache, despair, and confusion, but few have experienced those feelings more intensely than James Taylor, who rose from a childhood of privilege as the son of an affluent medical school dean to become a modern-day troubadour and pop superstar. When he was seventeen years old, his demons led him to a Massachusetts mental institution where he confronted them the only way he knew how, by writing his first songs. Thirty years later, Taylor's songs are among the most popular in the annals of music, but the demons are still with him. But unlike many of his contemporaries who faced a similar struggle, Taylor managed to emerge as an inspirational figure. Fire and Rain traces this remarkable path, including his troubled marriage to pop star Carly Simon and the premature alcoholism-related death of his brother: Taylor's ten-month stay in the exclusive private psychiatric institution where he finished high school; His self-imposed exile to England where he submitted some of his music to the Beatles' Apple Records, which signed him to his first record contract in 1968. Paul McCartney mentored Taylor's early career; The story behind his second album, Sweet Baby James, which contained the song "Fire and Rain" about the hopelessness of mental illness and suicide; As Taylor's fame increased, so did his problems with heroin, alcohol, and mental illness. In the seventies, the singer nearly fell over the edge many times.


About the Author
Ian Halperin has interviewed more than 100 musicians, family members, music industry figures, and others to paint a detailed but ultimately sympathetic portrait of Taylor's incredible life and career--the first-ever biography of this pop-music icon.


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