Seeing James Taylor posts on my timeline today and it reminded me to go back to Fire and Rain. Such a beautifully simple song to play on guitar — just a handful of open chords but the emotion hits every time.

If anyone wants to play along, here's a clean chord chart: https://chordroom.com/songs/677

Also highly recommend You've Got a Friend right after. That JT + Carole King story never gets old.

#guitar #jamestaylor #acousticguitar #songwriting #music #chords #singersongwriter

Still thinking about a story James Taylor told on the Stephen Colbert show....

In the early 70s, he was performing at The Troubadour with Carole King; at that time, she was recording the album Tapestry and he was making Mudslide Slim. Carole played a new song she had just written: "You've Got a Friend." JT said he heard it and thought it was so great he literally ran for his guitar to learn/ play it.

So then, when he was back in the recording studio, they had recorded a few covers, and he said to the others, "Let's do this song of Carole's." They recorded it, and then he went to tell CK that he wanted to include it on his album -- before she had even released it herself. She (generously) said, that's great.

And then she told him that what had prompted her to write the song was listening to his song "Fire and Rain." When she heard the line "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend," she thought, I'm going to tell him that he's got a friend... and she wrote the song.

"You've Got a Friend" won them each a Grammy: JT for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male and CK for Song of the Year.

#JamesTaylor #CaroleKing #Songwriting #SingerSongwriters

Chip Taylor, “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning” Songwriter, Dies at 86
#MusicNews #News #JamesTaylor #JonVoight #Obituaries

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-news/chip-taylor-dead-wild-thing-angel-of-the-morning-jon-voight-1236546315/