From a Chapel Hill childhood to a Diamond-certified greatest hits

James Taylor was born in 1948 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where his father, Isaac, was a resident physician. His mother, Gertrude, had studied singing at the New England Conservatory and hoped to be an opera singer before she married. He is the older brother of Kate and Livingston Taylor and the younger brother of Alex. In 1951 the family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, when Isaac took a post at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, later becoming its dean. Summers, from 1953, were spent on Martha's Vineyard.

Taylor later said that growing up in Chapel Hill was shaped more by landscape and climate than people: the red soil, the seasons, the smells. He took cello lessons as a child and learned guitar in 1960, shaped by hymns, carols and the music of Woody Guthrie. His father was often away, at Bethesda Naval Hospital or, in 1955 and 1956, on Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica.

His breakthrough was “Fire and Rain”, a number 3 hit. In 1971 he had his first number one with “You've Got a Friend”, written by Carole King, and the same year he played the lead in Monte Hellman's film Two-Lane Blacktop. His 1976 Greatest Hits was certified Diamond and has sold 11 million copies in the US alone, making it one of the best-selling albums in American history. Taylor is also known for cover versions such as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” and “Handy Man”, and for originals such as “Sweet Baby James”.

After JT in 1977, every album he released through 2007 sold over a million copies, and his combined US album and single sales are certified at 33 million. Chart success came back in the late 1990s and 2000s with Hourglass, October Road and Covers, and in 2015 Before This World gave him his first number-one album. He is a six-time Grammy winner, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, and as of 2026 he still tours.