James Taylor Performs Live in 1970, Thanks to a Little Help from His Friends, The Beatles

James Tay­lor Sings James Tay­lor, a BBC broad­cast from Novem­ber 1970, appears above. Though the near­ly 40-minute solo per­for­mance show­cas­es a play­er who has devel­oped and mas­tered his dis­tinc­tive musi­cal per­sona, it also show­cas­es one who has only reached a mere 22 years of age. But don’t let his aw-shucks youth­ful­ness fool you; by this point, Tay­lor had already endured a life­time’s worth of for­ma­tive trou­bles. He’d fall­en into deep depres­sion while still in high school, spent nine months in a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal, tak­en up and quit hero­in, bot­tomed out and spent six months in recov­ery, under­went vocal cord surgery, tak­en up methedrine, gone into methadone treat­ment, had an album flop, and bro­ken his hands and feet in a motor­cy­cle wreck. Fire and rain indeed. But he’d also found favor with the Bea­t­les, becom­ing the first Amer­i­can signed on their Apple label and recruit­ing Paul McCart­ney and George Har­ri­son to play on his “Car­oli­na in My Mind.” At the end of the six­ties, the world at large did­n’t know the name James Tay­lor, but his fel­low musi­cians knew it soon would.

“I just heard his voice and his gui­tar,” said McCart­ney, “and I thought he was great.” Ear­li­er in 1970, many lis­ten­ers sure­ly felt the same thing after drop­ping the nee­dle onto Tay­lor’s break­through sec­ond album Sweet Baby James. By the time James Tay­lor Sings James Tay­lor went to air, he’d accrued enough of an inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion to guar­an­tee appre­ci­a­tion from even non-Bea­t­les on the oth­er side of the pond. Know­ing his audi­ence, Tay­lor opens with a ren­di­tion of Lennon and McCart­ney’s “With a Lit­tle Help from My Friends.” The Bea­t­les con­nec­tions don’t stop there: Song­facts reports that Tay­lor’s “Some­thing in the Way She Moves,” the first sin­gle from his pre-Sweet Baby James Apple debut, may have inspired George Har­ri­son to write “Some­thing.” What’s more, Tay­lor had orig­i­nal­ly titled his song “I Feel Fine,” before real­iz­ing that the Bea­t­les had record­ed a song by that name. Though more trou­bled times lay ahead for the hum­ble (if already well on his way to wealth and fame) young singer-song­writer, this pro­duc­tion cap­tures Tay­lor just before super­star­dom kicked in.

Relat­ed con­tent

James Tay­lor Gives Free Acoustic Gui­tar Lessons Online

‘The Nee­dle and the Dam­age Done’: Neil Young Plays Two Songs on The John­ny Cash Show, 1971

Joni Mitchell: Singer, Song­writer, Artist, Smok­ing Grand­ma

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.