The Nahuas are a group of indigenous peoples of Mexico. Their language of Uto-Aztecan affiliation is called Nahuatl and consists of many more dialects and variants, a number of which are mutually unintelligible. About 1,500,000 Nahua speak Nahuatl and another 1,000,000 speak only Spanish.

Evidence suggests the Nahua peoples originated in the southwestern part of what is now the United States and northwestern Mexico. They split off from the other Uto-Aztecan speaking peoples and migrated into central Mexico around 500 CE. They settled in and around the Basin of Mexico and spread out to become the dominant people in central Mexico. Some of the most important Mesoamerican civilizations were of Nahua ethnicity, including the Toltec and Aztec cultures, as well as the Tepaneca, Acolhua, Tlaxcaltec, Xochimilca, and many others.

Nomenclature[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The name Nahua is derived from the Nahuatl word nāhuatl, which means "clear", "intelligible" or "speaking the Nahuatl language". It was used in contrast with popoloca, "to speak unintelligibly" or "speak a foreign language". Another, related term is Nahuatlaca, literally "Nahua people".

The Nahuas are also sometimes referred to as Aztecs. Using this term for the Nahuas has generally fallen out of favor in scholarship, though it is still used for the Aztec Empire. They have also been called Mexicanos or Mexicans, after the Mexica, a prominent Nahua group.

Geography[link]

Number of Nahuatl speakers per state (Mexico only)

At the turn of the 16th century, Nahua populations occupied territories ranging across modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua as far south as Panama.^[1] These were gradually assimilated into mestizo society in most places. The last of the southern Nahua populations are the Pipil of El Salvador.

Nahua populations in Mexico are centered in the middle of the country, with most speakers in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero and San Luis Potosí. But smaller populations are spread throughout the country, following recent population movements within Mexico. Within the last 50 years, Nahua populations have appeared in the USA, particularly in New York and L.A.^[2]

History[link]

Pre-Columbian period[link]

Archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence suggest that the Nahuas originally came from the deserts of northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S. and migrated into central Mexico in several waves.^[3] Before the Nahuas entered Mesoamerica they were probably living for a while in northwestern Mexico alongside the Cora and Huichol peoples.^[4] The first group of Nahuas to split from the main group were the Pochutec who went on to settle on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca possibly as early as 400 CE^[5] From ca 600 CE the Nahua quickly rose to power in central Mexico and expanded into areas earlier occupied by Oto-Manguean, Totonacan and Huastec peoples.^[6]

"Atlantean" columns from the Nahua culture of the Toltecs at Tula.

Around 1000 CE the Toltec people, normally assumed to have been of Nahua ethnicity, established dominion over much of central Mexico which they ruled from Tollan Xicocotitlan.^[7]

From this period on the Nahua were the dominant ethnic group in the Valley of Mexico and far beyond, and migrations kept coming in from the north. After the fall of Toltecs a period of large population movements followed and some Nahua groups such as the Pipil-Nicarao arrived as far south as Nicaragua. And in central Mexico different Nahua groups based in their different "Altepetl" citystates fought for political dominance. The Xochimilca, based in Xochimilco ruled an area south of the lake Texcoco; the Tepanecs ruled the area to the west and the Acolhua ruled an area to the east of the valley. One of the last of the Nahua migrations to arrive in the valley settled on an island in the Lake Texcoco and proceeded to subjugate the surrounding tribes. This group were the Mexica who during the next 300 years became the dominant ethnic group of Mesoamerica ruling from Tenochtitlan their island capital. Allying with the Tepanecs and Acolhua people of Texcoco they formed the Aztec empire spreading the political and linguistic influence of the Nahuas well into Central America.

Conquest period (1519–1523)[link]

In 1519 an expedition of Spaniards sailing from Cuba under the leadership of Hernán Cortés arrived on the Mexican gulf coast near the Totonac city of Quiyahuiztlan. The Totonacs were one of the peoples that were politically subjugated by the Aztecs and word was immediately sent to the Aztec Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan Motecuhzoma II. Going inland the Spaniards encountered and fought with Totonac forces and Nahua forces from the independent Altepetl of Tlaxcallan. The Tlaxcaltecs were a Nahua group who had avoided being subjugated by the Aztecs. After being defeated in battle by the Spaniards, the Tlaxcalans entered into an alliance with Cortes that would be invaluable in the struggle against the Aztecs.^[8] The Spanish and Tlaxcaltec forces marched upon several cities that were under Aztec dominion and "liberated" them, before they arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. There they were welcomed as guests by Motecuhzoma II, but after a while they took the ruler prisoner. When the Aztec nobility realized that their ruler had been turned into a Spanish puppet they attacked the Spaniards and chased them out of the city. The Spaniards sought refuge in Tlaxcala where they regrouped and awaited reinforcements. During the next year they cooperated with large Tlaxcaltec armies and undertook a siege campaign resulting in the final fall of Tenochtitlan. After the fall of Tenochtitlan Spanish forces now also allied with the Aztecs to incorporate all the previous Aztec provinces into the realm of New Spain. New Spain was founded as a state under Spanish rule but where Nahua people were recognized as allies of the rulers and as such were granted privileges and a degree of independence that other indigenous peoples of the area did not enjoy. Recently historians like Matthew Restall have argued that the Nahua did not experience the conquest as something substantially different from the sort of ethnic conflicts that they were used to, and that in fact they may have at first interpreted it as a defeat of one Nahua group by another.^[9]

Colonial Period[link]

With the arrival of the Spanish in Mesoamerica a new political situation ensued. Historian James Lockhart has divided the colonial history of the Nahua into three stages according to the degree of interaction between Spaniards and Nahuas and the following changes in Nahua culture.^[10]

Stage one (1519 - ca. 1550)[link]

In the initial stage of the colonial period, contact between Spaniards and the indigenous populations was limited. It consisted mostly in the Christianization of the population, and the reorganisation of the indigenous tributary system. The indigenous system of smaller villages' paying tribute to dominant political entities was worked into the Encomienda system. Indigenous groups paid tribute to a Spanish encomendero {landholder}. As the Spaniards sought to extend their political dominance into the most remote corners of Mesoamerica, the Nahua accompanied them as footsoldiers. In the early colonial period, new Nahua settlements were made in northern Mexico and far south into Central America. Nahua forces often formed the bulk of the Spanish military expeditions that conquered other Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Maya, Zapotecs and Mixtecs.

With the arrival of Christian missionaries, the first priority of the colonial authorities was eradicating indigenous religious practices, something they achieved by a combination of violence and threats of violence, and patient education. Nahua were baptized with Spanish names. The few Nahua who did not willingly abandon their religious practices were severely punished or executed. The Nahua, however, often incorporated pre-Christian practices and beliefs into the Christian religion without the authorities' noticing it. Often they kept practicing their own religion in the privacy of their homes, especially in rural areas where Spanish presence was almost completely lacking and the conversion process was slow.

The Nahua quickly took the Latin alphabetic writing as their own. Within 20 years of the arrival of the Spanish, the Nahua were composing texts in their own language. In 1536 the first university of the Americas, the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco was inaugurated. It served to educate the indigenous Nahua nobility as priests who were trilingual: speaking Spanish, Latin and Nahuatl.^[11]

Stage two (ca. 1550 - ca. 1650)[link]

Stage three (ca. 1650 - 1821)[link]

Modern (Postcolonial) Period[link]

Demography[link]

Nahua man of Morelos ploughing a bean field by mule

The Mexican government does not categorize its citizens by ethnicity, but only by language. Statistical information recorded about the Nahua deals only with speakers of the Nahuatl language, although unknown numbers of people of Nahua ethnicity have abandoned the language and now speak only Spanish.

Across Mexico, Nahuatl is spoken by an estimated 1.4 million people, including some 190,000 who are monolingual.^[13] The state of Guerrero has the highest ratio of monolingual Nahuatl speakers, calculated at 24.8%, based on 2000 census figures. The proportion of monolinguals for most other states is less than 5%.^[14]

The largest concentrations of Nahuatl speakers are found in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, and Guerrero. Significant populations are also found in México State, Morelos, and the Mexican Federal District, with smaller communities in Michoacán and Durango. Nahuatl was formerly spoken in the states of Jalisco and Colima, where it became extinct during the 20th century. As a result of internal migrations within the country, all Mexican states today have some isolated pockets and groups of Nahuatl speakers. The modern influx of Mexican workers and families into the United States has resulted in the establishment of a few small Nahuatl-speaking communities, particularly in New York and California.^[15]

64.3% of Nahuatl speakers are literate in Nahuatl compared with the national average of 97.5% for Spanish literacy. Male Nahuatl speakers have 9.8 years of education on average and women 10.1, compared with the 13.6 and 14.1 years that are the national averages for men and women, respectively.^[16]

Culture[link]

Language[link]

Nahuatl, Pipil

Religion[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

Mexico portal

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Juan Bautista Alvarado
Governor of Alta California
In office 1836–1837
Preceded by	Nicolas Gutierrez
Succeeded by	Carlos Antonio Carrillo
Governor of Alta California
In office 1838–1842
Preceded by	Carlos Antonio Carrillo
Succeeded by	Manuel Micheltorena
Personal details
Born	(1809-02-14)February 14, 1809 Monterey, California
Died	July 13, 1882(1882-07-13) (aged 73) Rancho San Pablo, California
Spouse(s)	Dona Martina Castro

Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo (February 14, 1809 – July 13, 1882) was a Californio and twice Governor of Alta California from 1836 to 1837, and 1838 to 1842.

Early years[link]

Alvarado was born in Monterey, Alta California, to Jose Francisco Alvarado and María Josefa Vallejo. His grandfather Juan Bautista Alvarado accompanied Gaspar de Portolà as an enlisted man in the Spanish Army in 1769. His father died a few months after his birth and his mother remarried three years later, leaving Juan Bautista in the care of his grandparents, the Vallejo family. He and Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo grew up together in the Vallejo household. They were both taught by William Edward Petty Hartnell, an English merchant living in Monterey.

In 1827 the eighteen-year-old Alvarado was hired as secretary to the territorial legislature. In 1829 he was briefly arrested along with Vallejo and another friend, José Castro, by soldiers involved in the military revolt led by Joaquín Solis. In 1831 he built a house in Monterey for his mistress, Juliana Francisca Ramona y Castillo, whom he called “Raymunda”, to live in. Over the years, the pair had a total of five illegitimate daughters, all of whom he recognized, but he never married their mother. During this period Alvarado began drinking heavily. One of his daughters claimed that Raymunda had refused to marry Alvarado because of his excessive drinking.

Alvarado was in favor of secularizing the missions and he was appointed to oversee the secularization of Mission San Miguel by José María de Echeandía, even though he had already been replaced as governor. The new governor, Manuel Victoria rescinded the order and wanted Alvarado and Castro arrested. The pair fled and were hidden by their old friend Vallejo, who was now adjutant at the Presidio of San Francisco. However, Victoria's rule proved to be unpopular and he was overthrown by Echeandía and replaced by Pío Pico at the end of 1831. Secularization of the missions resumed in 1833.

In 1834 Alvarado was elected to the legislature as a delegate and appointed customs inspector in Monterey. Rancho El Sur, south of Monterey, was granted to Alvarado by Governor José Figueroa on October 30, 1834.

After Figueroa's death in September 1835, Nicolás Gutiérrez was appointed as interim governor in January 1836, to be replaced by Mariano Chico in April, but he was very unpopular. Thinking a revolt was coming, Chico returned to Mexico to gather troops, but was reprimanded for leaving his post. Gutierrez, the military commandant, re-assumed the governorship, but he too was unpopular. Now a senior member of the legislature, Alvarado and Castro, with political support from Vallejo and assistance from a group of Americans led by Isaac Graham, staged a revolt and forced Gutierrez to relinquish power. The Americans wanted California independence, but Alvarado instead preferred staying a part of Mexico, albeit with greater autonomy.

Governor Alvarado[link]

Alvarado, at age 27, was then appointed governor, but the city council of Los Angeles protested. Alvarado, Castro, and Graham went south and negotiated a compromise after three months, avoiding a civil war. However, the city council of San Diego then voiced its disagreement with Alvarado's revolt. This time, the Mexican government was involved and there were rumors that the Mexican Army was ready to step in. Alvarado was able to negotiate another compromise to keep the peace.

Mexico reneged on the agreement, however, and appointed Carlos Antonio Carrillo, who was very popular among the southerners, governor on December 6, 1837. This time, civil war broke out and after several battles, Carrillo was forced out. Mexico finally relented and recognized Alvarado as governor.

Alvarado married Doña Martina Castro on August 24, 1839 in Santa Clara, but didn't attend his own wedding having his half-brother, Jose Antonio Estrada, stand in for him. Though he claimed to be detained in Monterey on official business, it was rumored he was actually drunk and unable to function. After the wedding, Alvarado lived with his bride in Monterey, but continued on with mistress, Raymunda, who lived nearby.

The process of secularization of the missions was in its final stages, and it was at this time that Alvarado parceled out much of their land to prominent Californios via land grants. Though he took no land for himself, he did however, trade his Rancho El Sur to John B.R. Cooper in exchange for Rancho Bolsa del Potrero which he subsequently sold back to Cooper. He purchased Rancho El Alisal near Salinas in 1841 from his former tutor William Hartnell.

In April 1840 a report of a planned revolt against Alvarado by a group of foreigners, led by former ally Isaac Graham, caused the governor to order their arrest and deportation to Mexico City for trial. They were eventually, however, acquitted of all charges in June 1841. Also in 1841, political leaders in the United States were declaring their doctrine of Manifest Destiny, and Californios grew increasingly concerned over their intentions. Vallejo conferred with Castro and Alvarado recommending that Mexico send military reinforcements to enforce their military control of California.

Tensions between Northern and Southern California[link]

In response, Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna sent Brigadier General Manuel Micheltorena and 300 men to California in January 1842. Micheltorena was to assume the governorship and the position of commandant general. In October, Before Micheltorena reached Monterey, American Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones mistakenly thought that war had broken out between the United States and Mexico. He sailed into Monterey Bay and demanded the surrender of the Presidio of Monterey. Micheltorena's force was still in the south and the Monterey presidio was undermanned. As such, Alvarado reluctantly surrendered, and retired to Rancho El Alisal. The next day Commodore Jones learned of his mistake, but Alvarado declined to return and instead referred the commodore to Micheltorena.

Micheltorena eventually made it to Monterey, but was unable to control his troops, a number of which were convicts. This fomented rumors of a revolt, and by 1844, Alvarado himself became associated with the malcontents and an order was made by Micheltorena for his arrest. His detention, however, was short-lived as, Micheltorena was under orders to organize a large contingent in preparation for war against the United States. All hands would be required for the task at hand.

This turned out to backfire on him, as on November 14, 1844, a group of Californios led by Manuel Castro revolted against Mexican authority. José Castro and Alvarado commanded the troops. There was no actual fighting, however; a truce was negotiated and Micheltorena agreed to dismiss his convict troops. However, Micheltorena reneged on the deal and fighting broke out this time. The rebels won the Battle of Providencia in February 1845 at the Los Angeles River and Micheltorena and his troops left California.

Pío Pico was installed as governor in Los Angeles and José Castro became commandant general. Later, Alvarado was elected to the Mexican Congress. He prepared to move to Mexico City, but Pico declined funding for the transfer, and relations between northern and southern California deteriorated further.

John C. Frémont arrived in Monterey at the beginning of 1846. Afraid of foreign aggression, Castro assembled his militia, with Alvarado second in command, but Frémont went north to Oregon instead. An unstable political situation in Mexico strained relations among the Californios and it seemed that civil war would break out between north and south.

An independent California[link]

On June 14, 1846, a group of foreign settlers staged the Bear Flag Revolt, capturing the town of Sonoma and General Mariano Vallejo. On July 7, Commodore John D. Sloat occupied Monterey, declaring to the citizenry that the Mexican-American War had begun. Pico, Castro, and Alvarado set aside their differences to focus on the American threat, but by the end of August, Pico and Castro would flee to Mexico, and Alvarado would be captured. Following his release, Alvarado would spend the remainder of the war on his estate in Monterey.

After the war, he was offered the governorship, but he declined, instead retiring to his wife Martina's family estate at Rancho San Pablo in 1848.^[1] Alvarado did not participate in the California Gold Rush, instead concentrating his efforts at agriculture and business. He opened the Union Hotel on the rancho in 1860, but his businesses were mostly unsuccessful. After Martina's death in 1876, Alvarado wrote his Historia de California. He died on his ranch in 1882 and is buried at Saint Mary Cemetery in Oakland.

Alvarado's adobe house, at the foot of Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey, survives as a California Historical Landmark. Alvarado Street in San Francisco's Noe Valley is named after him. Portions of the Rancho San Pablo adobe are incorporated into the current City of San Pablo government campus and Alvarado Park within Wildcat Canyon Regional Park is named in his honor.

References[link]

"Juan Alvarado - Biographic Notes". Inn-California. http://www.inn-california.com/Articles/biographic/jbalvaradobio.html. Retrieved 2006-12-27. 

v t e Governors of California Pre-statehood de Portolà Fages Rivera de Neve Fages Roméu Arrillaga Borica Alberní Arrillaga J. Argüello Solá L. Argüello Echeandía Victoria P. Pico Zamorano / Echeandía Figueroa Castro Gutierrez Chico Gutierrez Alvarado Carrillo Alvarado Micheltorena P. Pico Flores A. Pico Ide Sloat Stockton Frémont Kearny Mason Smith Riley Statehood Burnett McDougall Bigler J. Johnson Weller Latham Downey Stanford Low Haight Booth Pacheco Irwin Perkins Stoneman Bartlett Waterman Markham Budd Gage Pardee Gillett H. Johnson Stephens Richardson Young Rolph Merriam Olson Warren Knight P. Brown Reagan J. Brown Deukmejian Wilson Davis Schwarzenegger J. Brown Pre-Statehood list Statehood list Statehood list by time in office Statehood list by age

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Nicolas de Jesus (born December 6, 1960) is a Mexican artist from the Nahua region of Guerrero, Mexico. [1] His work carries themes of Mexican rural life as well as politics and world events. The celebration Dia de los Muertos is a common subject in his art.

References[link]

• "NICOLAS DE JESUS". Archived from the original on 2007-04-24. http://web.archive.org/web/20070424174623/http://www.zihua.net/nicolas/. Retrieved 2007-04-30. 

This article about an artist from Mexico is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

James Taylor
Taylor in April 2011
Background information
Birth name	James Vernon Taylor
Born	(1948-03-12) March 12, 1948 (age 64) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Origin	Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Genres	Folk rock, rock, pop, soft rock, country
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, harmonica[1]
Years active	1966–present
Labels	Apple, Capitol, EMI, Warner Bros., Columbia, SME, Hear Music
Associated acts	Carole King, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh
Website	www.jamestaylor.com

James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

Taylor achieved his major breakthrough in 1970 with the #3 single "Fire and Rain" and had his first #1 hit the following year with "You've Got a Friend", a recording of Carole King's classic song. His 1976 Greatest Hits album was certified Diamond and has sold 12 million US copies. Following his 1977 album, JT, he has retained a large audience over the decades. His commercial achievements declined slightly until a big resurgence during the late 1990s and 2000s, when some of his best-selling and most-awarded albums (including Hourglass, October Road and Covers) were released.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

James Taylor was born at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1948, where his father, Isaac M. Taylor, was a resident physician.^[2][3] His father was from a well-off family of Southern Scottish ancestry.^[2] His mother, the former Gertrude Woodard, had studied singing with Marie Sundelius at the New England Conservatory of Music and was an aspiring opera singer before the couple's marriage in 1946.^[2][4] James was the second of five children, the others being Alex (1947-1993), Kate (born 1949), Livingston (born 1950), and Hugh (born 1952).^[5]

In 1951, when James was three years old, the family moved to what was then the countryside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina,^[6] when Isaac took a job as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.^[7] They built a house in the Morgan Creek area off of what is now Morgan Creek Road, which was sparsely populated.^[8] James would later say, "Chapel Hill, the Piedmont, the outlying hills, were tranquil, rural, beautiful, but quiet. Thinking of the red soil, the seasons, the way things smelled down there, I feel as though my experience of coming of age there was more a matter of landscape and climate than people."^[8] James attended public primary school in Chapel Hill.^[2] Isaac's career prospered, but he was frequently away from home, either on military service at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland or as part of Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica during 1955–1956.^[9] Isaac Taylor later rose to become Dean of the UNC School of Medicine from 1964 to 1971.^[10] The family spent summers on Martha's Vineyard beginning in 1953.^[11]

Taylor first learned to play the cello as a child in North Carolina, and switched to the guitar in 1960.^[12] His style on that instrument evolved from listening to hymns, carols, and Woody Guthrie, while his technique derived from his bass clef-oriented cello training and from experimenting on his sister Kate's keyboards: "My style was a finger-picking style that was meant to be like a piano, as if my thumb were my left hand, and my first, second, and third fingers were my right hand."^[13] He began attending Milton Academy, a prep boarding school in Massachusetts in Fall 1961; summering before then with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York.^[14] The two began listening to and playing blues and folk music together, and Kortchmar quickly realized that Taylor's singing had a "natural sense of phrasing, every syllable beautifully in time. I knew James had that thing."^[15] Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at age 14, and continued to learn the instrument effortlessly.^[13] By the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch".^[16]

Taylor faltered during his junior year at Milton, not feeling at ease in the high-pressured college prep environment despite having good scholastic performance.^[17] The Milton principal would later say, "James was more sensitive and less goal oriented than most students of his day."^[18] He returned home to North Carolina to finish out the semester at Chapel Hill High School.^[17] There he joined a band his brother Alex had formed called The Corsayers (later The Fabulous Corsairs), playing electric guitar; in 1964 they cut a single in Raleigh that featured James's song "Cha Cha Blues" on the B-side.^[17] Having lost touch with his former school friends in North Carolina, Taylor returned to Milton for his senior year.^[17]

There, Taylor started applying to colleges,^[19] but soon descended into depression; his grades collapsed, he slept twenty hours a day, and he felt part of a "life that I [was] unable to lead."^[17][20] In late 1965 he committed himself to the renowned McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts,^[17] where he was treated with Thorazine and where the organized days began to give him a sense of time and structure.^[18][20] As the Vietnam War built up, Taylor received a psychological rejection from Selective Service System when he appeared before them with two white-suited McLean assistants and was uncommunicative.^[21] Taylor earned a high school diploma in 1966 from the hospital's associated Arlington School.^[21] He would later view his nine-month stay at McLean as "a lifesaver ... like a pardon or like a reprieve,"^[20] and both his brother Livingston and sister Kate would later be patients and students there as well.^[18] As for his mental health struggles, Taylor would think of them as innate, and say: "It's an inseparable part of my personality that I have these feelings."^[19]

1966–1969: Early career[link]

Taylor checked himself out of McLean and, at Kortchmar's urging, moved to New York City to form a band.^[21] They recruited Joel O'Brien, formerly of Kortchmar's old band The King Bees, to play drums, and Taylor's childhood friend Zachary Wiesner (son of noted academic Jerome Wiesner) to play bass, and – after Taylor rejected the notion of naming the group after him – called themselves The Flying Machine.^[18][22] They played songs that Taylor had written at and about McLean, such as "Knocking 'Round the Zoo", "Don't Talk Now", and "The Blues Is Just a Bad Dream".^[20][22] In some other songs, Taylor romanticized his life, although he was plagued by self-doubt.^[23] By summer 1966 they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village alongside acts such as The Turtles and Lothar and the Hand People.^[24]

Taylor associated with a motley collection of people and began using heroin, to Kortchmar's dismay, and wrote the "Paint It, Black"-influenced "Rainy Day Man" to depict his drug experience.^[18][24] In a hasty recording session in late 1966, the group cut a single, Taylor's "Brighten Your Night with My Day" backed with his "Night Owl".^[25] Released on Jay Gee Records, a subsidiary of Jubilee Records, it received some radio airplay in the Northeast,^[25] but only charted to #102 nationally.^[26] Other songs had been recorded during the same session, but Jubilee declined to go forward with an album.^[25] After a series of poorly chosen appearances outside New York, culminating with a three-week stay at a failing nightspot in Freeport, Bahamas for which they were never paid, The Flying Machine broke up.^[25] (A UK band with the same name emerged in 1969 with the hit song "Smile a Little Smile for Me." The New York band's recordings were later released in 1971 as James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine.)

Taylor would later say of this New York period, "I learned a lot about music and too much about drugs."^[23] Indeed, his drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction during the final Flying Machine period: "I just fell into it, since it was as easy to get high in the Village as get a drink."^[25] He hung out in Washington Square Park, playing guitar to ward off depression and then passing out, letting runaways and criminals stay at his apartment.^[27] Finally out of money and abandoned by his manager, he made a desperate call one night to his father. Isaac Taylor flew to New York and staged a rescue, renting a car and driving all night back to North Carolina with James and his possessions.^[27] Taylor spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery; he also required a throat operation to fix vocal cords damaged from singing too harshly.^[28]

Taylor decided to try being a solo act and a change of scenery. In late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London, living variously in Notting Hill, Belgravia, and Chelsea.^[29] He recorded some demos in Soho and, capitalizing on Kortchmar's connection to The King Bees (who once opened for Peter and Gordon), brought the demos to Peter Asher, who was A&R head for The Beatles' newly formed label Apple Records.^[30] Asher showed the demos to Paul McCartney, who later said, "I just heard his voice and his guitar and I thought he was great ... and he came and played live, so it was just like, 'Wow, he's great.'"^[30] Taylor became the first non-British act signed to Apple.^[30] Living chaotically in various places with various women, Taylor wrote additional material, including "Carolina in My Mind", and rehearsed with a new backing band.^[31] Taylor recorded what would become his first album from July to October 1968 at Trident Studios, at the same time The Beatles were recording The White Album.^[31][32] McCartney and an uncredited George Harrison guested on "Carolina in My Mind", whose lyric holy host of others standing around me referred to the Beatles, while the title phrase of Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves" provided the lyrical starting point for Harrison's classic "Something."^[33][34] McCartney and Asher brought in arranger Richard Hewson to add both orchestrations to several of the songs and unusual "link" passages between them; these would receive a mixed reception at best.^[33][35]

During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit, using heroin and methedrine.^[33] He underwent physeptone treatment in a British program, returned to New York and was hospitalized there, and then finally committed himself to the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which emphasized cultural and historical factors in trying to treat difficult psychiatric disorders.^[36] Meanwhile, Apple released his debut album, James Taylor, in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the U.S.^[36] Critical reaction was generally good, including a very positive Jon Landau review in Rolling Stone which said "this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I've inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out."^[35] The record's commercial potential suffered from Taylor's inability to promote it due to his hospitalization and it sold poorly; "Carolina in My Mind" was released as a single, but failed to chart in the UK and only reached #118 in the U.S.^[36]

Apple Corps itself had fallen into chaos, with anarchic business planning and freeloaders taking advantage of it in every direction.^[37] In early 1969, to clean up the situation, three of the Beatles brought in Allen Klein, who began purging Apple personnel.^[38] Asher did not like Klein; he resigned of his own accord and offered to manage Taylor, to which Taylor agreed.^[39] Klein wanted to hit Taylor with a $5 million lawsuit for leaving,^[40] but McCartney (a Klein antagonist) and then the other Beatles, overruled him on the grounds that artists should not be holding each other to contracts.^[39]

In July 1969 Taylor headlined a six-night stand at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. On July 20 he performed at the Newport Folk Festival as the last act, and was cheered by thousands of fans who stayed in the rain to hear him.^[41][42] Shortly thereafter, he broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months.^[43] But while recovering, he continued to write songs and in October 1969, signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records.^[43]

1970–1973: Breakthrough[link]

Taylor in the early 1970s.

Once recovered, Taylor moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer. In December 1969, he held the recording sessions for his second album there. Entitled Sweet Baby James, and with the participation of Carole King, the album was released in February 1970 and was Taylor's critical and popular triumph, buoyed by the single "Fire and Rain", a song about Taylor's experience in psychiatric institutions and the suicide of his friend, Suzanne Schnerr. Both the album and the single reached #3 in the Billboard charts, with Sweet Baby James selling more than 1½ million copies in its first year^[18] and eventually more than 3 million in the United States alone. Sweet Baby James was received at its time as a folk-rock masterpiece, an album that effectively showcased Taylor's talents to the mainstream public, marked the direction he would take in following years, and made Taylor one of the main forces of the nascent movement. It earned several Grammy Award nominations including one for Album of the Year. (It would be listed at #103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, with "Fire and Rain" listed as #227 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time the year after.)

Mise en scène for Two-Lane Blacktop: Boswell, Oklahoma

During the time Sweet Baby James was released, Taylor appeared with Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys in a Monte Hellman film, Two-Lane Blacktop. In October 1970, he performed with Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and the Canadian band Chilliwack at a Vancouver benefit concert that funded Greenpeace's protests of 1971 nuclear weapons tests by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission at Amchitka, Alaska. (This performance would be released in 2009 on the album Amchitka, The 1970 Concert That Launched Greenpeace.) In January 1971, sessions for Taylor's next album began.

His career success so far, and appeal to female fans of various ages, piqued tremendous interest in Taylor, prompting a March 1, 1971, Time magazine cover story.^[18] It compared his strong-but-brooding persona to that of Wuthering Heights's Heathcliff and to The Sorrows of Young Werther, and said that, "Taylor's use of elemental imagery—darkness and sunlight, references to roads traveled and untraveled. to fears spoken and left unsaid—reaches a level both of intimacy and controlled emotion rarely achieved in purely pop music."^[18] Released in April, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon also gained massive critical acclaim and contained Taylor's biggest hit single in the U.S., a version of the Carole King standard "You've Got a Friend" (featuring backing vocals by Joni Mitchell), which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late July. The album itself reached #2 in the album charts, which would be Taylor's highest position ever on this list. In early 1972, Taylor received his first Grammy Award, for (Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male) for "You've Got a Friend" (King also won Song of the Year for the same song in that ceremony). The album went on to sell 2½ million copies in the United States alone.

November 1972 saw the release of Taylor's fourth album, One Man Dog. A concept album primarily recorded in his home recording studio, it featured cameos by Linda Ronstadt and consisted of eighteen short pieces of music put together. It was received with generally lukewarm reviews and, despite making the Top 10 of the Billboard Album Charts, overall sales were disappointing. The lead single "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" peaked at #18 on the Hot 100, and the follow-up, "One Man Parade", barely reached the Top 75. Almost simultaneously, Taylor married fellow singer-songwriter Carly Simon on November 3, in a small ceremony at her Murray Hill, Manhattan apartment.^[44] A post-concert party following a Taylor performance at Radio City Music Hall turned into a large-scale wedding party, and the Simon-Taylor marriage would find much public attention over the following years.^[44] They had two children, Sarah Maria "Sally" Taylor, born January 7, 1974, and Benjamin Simon "Ben" Taylor, born January 22, 1977.^[45]

1974–1976: Career ups and downs[link]

Taylor spent most of 1973 enjoying his new life as a married man, and he did not return to the recording studio until January 1974, when sessions for his fifth album began. Walking Man was released in June and featured appearances of Paul and Linda McCartney and guitarist David Spinozza. The album was a critical and commercial disaster, being his first album to miss the Top 5 since his contract with Warner. It received poor reviews and sold a mere 300,000 copies in the United States. The title track was a huge disappointment, and failed to even appear on the Top 100 – nevertheless, it stands today as an often reprised fan favorite in concerts.^{[citation needed]}

However, James Taylor's artistic fortunes spiked again in 1975 when the Gold album Gorilla reached #6 and provided one of his biggest hit singles, a cover version of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", which featured wife Carly in backing vocals and reached #5 in America and #1 in Canada. On the Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, the track also reached the top, and the follow-up single, the feel-good "Mexico" also reached the Top 5 of that list. A critically very well received album, Gorilla showcased Taylor's electric, lighter side that was evident on Walking Man. However, it was arguably a more consistent and fresher-sounding Taylor, with classics such as "Wandering" and "Angry Blues." It also featured a song about his daughter Sally, "Sarah Maria".

Gorilla was followed in 1976 by In the Pocket, Taylor's last studio album to be released under Warner Bros. Records. The album found him with many colleagues and friends, including Art Garfunkel, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Wonder (who co-wrote a song with Taylor and contributed a harmonica solo). A very melodic album, it was highlighted with the single "Shower the People", an enduring classic that hit #1 Adult Contemporary and almost hit the Top 20 of the Pop Charts. But the album was not very well received, reaching only #16 and being highly criticized, particularly by Rolling Stone. Nevertheless 1976 was a huge boom year in the recording business — the year of inception of the "Platinum" disc — and In The Pocket was certified Gold.

With the close of Taylor's contract with Warner, in November the label released Greatest Hits, the album that comprised most of his best work between 1970 and 1976. It became with time his best-selling album, ever. It was certified eleven times Platinum in the US, earning a Diamond certification by the RIAA and eventually selling close to twenty million copies worldwide. It still stands as the best-selling folk album by any artist.^{[citation needed]}

1977–1981: Move to Columbia and maintained success[link]

In 1977 Taylor signed with Columbia Records. Between March and April, he quickly recorded his first album for the label. JT, released that June, gave Taylor his best reviews since Sweet Baby James, earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year in 1978. Rolling Stone was particularly favorable to the album – "JT is the least stiff and by far the most various album Taylor has done. That's not meant to criticize Taylor's earlier efforts [...]. But it's nice to hear him sounding so healthy."^[46] JT reached #4 in the Billboard charts, selling more than 3 million copies in the United States alone. The album's Triple Platinum status ties it with Sweet Baby James as Taylor's all-time biggest selling studio album. It was propelled by the highly successful cover of Jimmy Jones and Otis Blackwell's "Handy Man", which hit #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached #4 on the Hot 100, earning Taylor another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his cover version. The song also topped the Canadian charts. The success of the album propelled the release of two further singles – the up-tempo pop "Your Smiling Face" (an enduring live favorite) reached the American Top 20; however, "Honey Don't Leave L.A.," penned by Danny Kortchmar did not enjoy much success, barely reaching the Top 75.

Back in the forefront of popular music, Taylor collaborated with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in the recording of a cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World", which reached the Top 20 in the U.S. and topped the AC charts in early 1978. After briefly working on Broadway, he took a one-year break, reappearing in the summer of 1979 with the cover-studded Platinum album Flag, featuring a Top 30 version of Gerry Goffin and Carole King's "Up on the Roof". (Two selections from Flag, "Millworker" and "Brother Trucker," were featured on the PBS production of the Broadway musical based on Studs Terkel's non-fiction book Working, and James himself appeared in that production as a trucker; he performed "Brother Trucker" in character.) Taylor also appeared on the No Nukes concert in Madison Square Garden, where he made a memorable live performance of "Mockingbird" with his wife Carly. The concert appeared on both the No Nukes album and film.

On December 7, 1980, Taylor had an encounter with Mark David Chapman who would assassinate John Lennon. Taylor told the BBC in 2010 "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon. And it was surreal to actually have contact with the guy 24 hours before he shot John." The next night Taylor, who lived in the next building from Lennon, heard the assassination occur. Taylor commented "I heard him shot — five, just as quick as you could pull the trigger, about five explosions".^[47]

In March 1981, James Taylor released the album Dad Loves His Work, whose themes concerned his relationship with his father, the course his ancestors had taken, and the effect he and Simon had had on each other.^[48] The album was another Platinum success, reaching #10 and providing Taylor's final real hit single in a duet with J. D. Souther, "Her Town Too," which reached #5 Adult Contemporary and #11 on the Hot 100 in Billboard. The album's title was, in part, drawn from the reasons for Taylor's divorce from Carly Simon. She gave him an ultimatum: cut back on his music and touring, and spend more time with her and their children, or the marriage was through. The album's title was Taylor's answer, and Simon asked for divorce. (The emotional repercussions of the divorce likely served as at least part of the inspiration for "Her Town Too.")

1981–1996: Troubled times and new beginnings[link]

Simon announced her separation from Taylor in September 1981 – saying "Our needs are different; it seem[s] impossible to stay together" – and their divorce became final in 1983.^[49] Taylor was living on West End Avenue in Manhattan and on a methadone maintenance program.^[50] Over the course of four months starting in September 1983, spurred on in part by the deaths of his friends John Belushi and Dennis Wilson and in part by the desire to be a better father to his children, he dropped methadone and finally kicked his habit for good.^[50]

Taylor had thoughts of retiring by the time he played the massive Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro in January 1985.^[51] He was encouraged by the nascent democracy in Brazil at the time, buoyed by the positive reception he got from the large crowd and other musicians, and musically energized by the sounds and nature of Brazilian music.^[52] "I had... sort of bottomed-out in a drug habit, my marriage with Carly had dissolved, and I had basically been depressed and lost for a while, " he recalled in 1995. "I sort of hit a low spot. I was asked to go down to Rio de Janeiro to play in this festival down there. We put the band together and went down and it was just an amazing response. I played to 300,000 people. They not only knew my music, they knew things about it and were interested in aspects of it that to that point had only interested me. To have that kind of validation right about then was really what I needed. It helped get me back on track." ^[53] The song "Only a Dream in Rio" was written in tribute to that night, with lines like I was there that very day and my heart came back alive.^[52] The October 1985 album, That's Why I'm Here, from which that song came, started a series of studio recordings that, while spaced further apart than his previous records, showed a more consistent level of quality and fewer covers, most notably the Buddy Holly song "Everyday", released as a single reached #61.

On December 14, 1985, Taylor married actress Kathryn Walker at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.^[54] Taylor's next albums were partially successful – in 1988, he released Never Die Young, highlighted with the charting title track, and in 1991, the platinum New Moon Shine provided Taylor some popular songs with the melancholic "Copperline" and the upbeat "(I've Got to) Stop Thinkin' About That", both hit singles in the AC radio. During the late 1980s, he began touring regularly, especially on the summer amphitheater circuit. His later concerts feature songs from throughout his career and are marked by the musicianship of his band and backup singers. The 1993 two-disc Live album captures this, with a highlight being Arnold McCuller's descants in the codas of "Shower the People" and "I Will Follow." In 1995, Taylor performed the role of the Lord in Randy Newman's Faust.

1997–2003: Successful comeback[link]

Taylor in 1999

After 6 years since his last studio album, Taylor released Hourglass, an introspective album that gave him the best critical reviews in almost twenty years. The album had much of its focus on Taylor's troubled past and family. "Jump Up Behind Me" paid tribute to his father's rescue of him after The Flying Machine days, and the long drive from New York City back to his home in Chapel Hill.^[55] "Enough To Be On Your Way" was inspired by the alcoholism-related death of his brother Alex earlier in the decade.^[56] The themes were also inspired by Taylor and Walker's divorce, which took place in 1996.^[57] Rolling Stone found that "one of the themes of this record is disbelief", while Taylor told the magazine that it was "spirituals for agnostics."^[58] Critics embraced the dark themes on the album, and Hourglass was a huge commercial success, reaching #9 on the Billboard 200 (Taylor's first Top 10 album in sixteen years) and also provided a big adult contemporary hit on "Little More Time With You". The album also gave Taylor his first Grammy since JT, when he was honored with Best Pop Album in 1998.

Taylor and wife Caroline "Kim" Smedvig, seen in 2008