James Taylor: You Ask The Questions

So, James Taylor, how do you think drugs affected the songs you wrote in the Seventies? And would you recommend becoming a father again at 50?

James Taylor, 56, grew up in North Carolina. In 1968, he went to London and signed to The Beatles' Apple record label. The same year, he started using heroin. During the next five years, he released some of his best-known work including "Sweet Baby James", "Fire and Rain" and "You've Got a Friend". In 1972, he married Carly Simon. Their two children, Sally and Ben, are both musicians. Over the course of his career, he has released 40 gold, platinum or multi-platinum records. He now lives in Boston with his third wife Caroline and their three-year-old twin sons Henry and Rufus.

Do you find song writing easy?
Gary Fitkin, Southampton

It's easy to start songs, but it's hard to finish them. Usually, they start when I'm playing the guitar and I get a musical idea. Normally that's accompanied by an emotional sense and a lyrical idea comes along. They just seem to materialise. I don't direct the process very much at all.

To finish a song, you have to set aside a lot of time. And you basically have to organise the song. The hardest song I've ever written has probably been "Mean Old Man". That took me about a year to write. There was a lot of staring at the blank page, going out for long walks. But then, when it happened, it came out all at once, as if it was being written in a part of my brain that I had no control over.

What was your first impression of The Beatles when you met them in 1968?
John Longhurst, Ipswich

I was amazed. I suppose my first impression was how affable and ordinary they were because I saw them as some kind of Mount Olympus. I was just casting about in London trying to find a record deal or some way to do work. I met them in their office in Baker Street. Paul McCartney was there. It was a very loose and casual office to say the least. I spent a lot of time up there just kicking about. It was great.

Would you recommend becoming a father again at 50?
Bill Deller, by e-mail

Under the right circumstances, yes, but not too much later than that. There are things about parenthood that are much better when you've got your ducks a little bit more in a row; when you've figured out your priorities. But who knows how to compare these things?

How do think the drugs you took affected the songs you wrote in the 1970s?
Charlene Stapleton, Maidstone

You know, sometimes I think that very destructive period was inevitable. I think I was self-medicating in a way. It would be wrong to call it recreational drug use. It was too dangerous and too damaging to be seen as recreational. I was very lucky to have survived it and have moved beyond it for 20 years.

In some ways, it did hold me back, but in others it enabled me. It's not that I'm recommending drug abuse, but that's the way it was. The songs I've written since I came off drugs such as "The Frozen Man" and "Mean Old Man" are better written, I think. But, when I was on the drugs, there was something so urgent about the songs I wrote. Some of those songs like "Carolina in my Mind" and "Sweet Baby James" were also good, but in a different way.

You spent time in London in the late Sixties, but it sounds as if it was unhappy. Would you come back?
Paula Baker, Madrid

I've often wondered what it would have been like if I'd held on in London and made my life in Europe. But, although you can have a romantic idea of what it might be like to move to a place, unless there's a lot to hold you there, you miss home. So, I guess I just got homesick, as the song "Carolina in my Mind" mentions - that's what it was about. Despite the "holy host of others" - being The Beatles and Apple Records - I was drawn to limp back home.

Did you mind when Justin Timberlake became the best known "JT"?
Craig Horne, Fife

It's really OK. I could back off JT. There's a lot of us around anyway. The lead singer of Kool and the Gang is also called James Taylor and is known as JT. And then, of course, there's the British James Taylor who has the James Taylor Quartet. So I'm used to it.

You could stop touring if you wanted to. Why don't you?
Chrissie Sharpe, by e-mail

People always assume that I could stop touring, but it's arguable actually. It's what I do for a living. Even if I could, I wouldn't because I think it's important to make your music in front of a live audience. It's the only feedback you can trust. If you spend all your time in the studio or promoting yourself, trying to be a celebrity, you can get lost. Touring is as real as this life gets.

In "Fire and Rain", who was Suzanne?
Naomi Davies, London

It was a friend of mine who I knew in New York in the mid-Sixties. I had been recording my first album with Apple Records in 1968 and friends of mine had found out that she had died, but had kept it from me because they wanted to protect me while I was writing the album. I wrote the song as soon as I found out.

You and your generation wanted to stop the Vietnam War and change the world at the same time. Thirty years on, do you think the world has changed for the better?
Mel Jones, Leicester

Who's to say? It's hard to give it a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. But I do think that the world is a better place socially, although not environmentally. People have more of a sense of social justice now. Even if it's not accomplished, it's an expectation. A hundred years ago, it was expected that some people would be on the top and most would be on the bottom. That's still the case, but at least now people are aware that it's not right and, most importantly, that's its not sustainable.

What has been the most important friendship of your life?
Sasha Wollard, by e-mail

My wife is my best friend, but following that, I have many important musical friendships. My relationship with Jimmy Johnson, my bass player, is wonderful. And Don Grolnick, who I played piano with for years, but who died five years ago, was a great friend. But it's impossible to list them all. I guess I'm lucky that I've got a lot of friends. It's great to know that those people know you and that they will forgive the occasional detour into bad behaviour.

How many of your kids are in the music business and do you have any plans for a family CD?
Tom Snyder, by e-mail

My son Ben is making his second album now and is definitely committed. My daughter, Sally, has released three albums. So, they're both in that life. On the surface of it, it would be an appealing idea to do something together, but, at this point, I think it's best to keep away and let them develop their own thing. Benign neglect, I think you'd call it. They're adults and, in many ways, they're more adult than I am.

Who was Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain' about?
Phil Keegan, by e-mail

You know, you're going to have to ask her that one.

James Taylor plays Earl's Court, London SW5 (0870 010 4900), on 22 July; and Blickling Hall, Norfolk (0870 903 9033), on 24 July