James Taylor

This profile got butchered beyond recognition. It epitomizes the gap between the book I wanted to read/write and the book they want to publish. But you can't win 'em all. Here's the original version.
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Of the many legacies the Beatles bestowed upon pop music, two are often forgotten. One is the emergence of the pop song as a diarist – one who documents their innermost feelings and then puts them on display via song for the world to hear. John Lennon took this idiom to an extreme in his kiss-off to the Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, a harrowing display of his mental state at the time. In doing so, he helped give birth to a new form of pop artist: the so-called singer-songwriter.

Another legacy borne of the Beatles was James Taylor, if not the best practitioner among singer-songwriters, then certainly one of the best paid. One of the first outside artists signed to the Beatles’ Apple label in 1968, Taylor broke through to pop audiences in 1970 with “Fire And Rain.” The song, which went to No. 3, ruminates on the death of a friend, Taylor’s attempts to kick heroin, his experiences in a mental institution, and anything else that happened to be on his mind that day. The song forevermore set forth the image of the well-intentioned white male troubadour, going from town to town singing his pain and dying for the audience’s sins.

One trademark of Taylor's was the lilting acoustic guitar that would form the centerpiece to most of his biggest hits. But the other, which tends to get less attention, is his love for rhythm & blues. To help get this aspect of his music over, he used some of the best session musicians in Los Angeles as his accomplices, such as guitarist Danny Kortchmar (who would later hit paydirt collaborating with Don Henley), bassist Lee Sklar, and drummer Russ Kunkel. This rhythm section would back many West Coast songwriters throughout the 1970s.

Now more of an album artist than a singles artist, two of his last three studio albums went Top Ten without a single to recommend them, a testament to his popularity among aging baby boomers.

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The first two grafs have been rewritten as follows:

James Taylor was one of the most successful performers in the so-called singer-songwriter genre, which generally consisted of hyper-literate and hyper-literary lyricists setting forth their innermost feelings usually dressed with a plaintive acoustic guitar. Picking up the mantle from Joni Mitchell, who briefly dated Taylor, and Paul Simon, James Taylor approached his calling with sincerity and humor.

One of the first outside artists signed to the Beatles’ Apple label in 1968, James Taylor broke through to pop audiences in 1970 with “Fire And Rain.” The song, which went to #3, ruminates on the death of a friend, Taylor’s attempts to kick heroin, and his experiences in a mental institution.