In 1969, James Taylor released his first single, “Carolina On My Mind”. On his eponymous debut album, it would take him six more singles, two years, and two more albums before he finally had his first and only No. 1 hit. On Taylor’s third record, Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, is “You’ve Got a Friend”. The song is one of only two songs Taylor did not write for the 13-song project. Instead, “You’ve Got A Friend” is written by Taylor’s good friend, Carole King.
Taylor didn’t write “You’ve Got A Friend”, but he did help inspire it. In 1970, Taylor had a Top 5 single with “Fire And Rain”. A song he wrote for his sophomore Sweet Baby James album, King credits “Fire And Rain” with inspiring “You’ve Got A Friend”.
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In “Fire And Rain”, Taylor sings, “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend.” King later says her response to the song became “You’ve got a friend right here.”
How James Taylor Ended Up Releasing Carole King’s Song
King did release “You’ve Got A Friend”, but it’s Taylor’s version that became a big hit. The song is on King’s sophomore Tapestry project. Taylor reportedly heard King singing “You’ve Got A Friend” during soundcheck, when she was opening for him. When he went in to record Mud Slide Slim And The Blue Horizon, they had time leftover in the studio, which is what led Taylor to record “You’ve Got A Friend”.
Taylor recalls the moment he first heard “You’ve Got A Friend” and the impact it had on him.
“We were playing a job together at The Troubadour – a dive, really – in Los Angeles, but an important gig to play,” Taylor recalls on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. “And she and I were going back for the second or third engagement at The Troubadour, and she broke the seal on this brand-new tune.”
“I was sure I knew the song already because it was such a classic immediately,” he adds. “I literally ran to find my guitar so I could play it.”
If not for Taylor and his band being so quick in the studio, fans may have never heard Taylor’s version of “You’ve Got A Friend”.
“We had a couple of hours left,” Taylor remembers. “That’s typically when someone will think of a cover … It’s just a spur of the moment drop of the hat; we would do a quick arrangement and ‘boom.’”
Taylor and King both won Grammy Awards for “You’ve Got A Friend”.
Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images
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