Artist · chart history · #33 in indie & aaa artist polls
James Taylor
Solo artist Boston United States singer-songwriter and guitarist
James Taylor is an artist from Boston. James Taylor has 56 chart appearances on 20 radio countdowns from 9 stations on RockLists, spanning 1997–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Fire And Rain”, which appears on 17 lists with a best position of #68. The station that charted James Taylor most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 21 appearances.
James Taylor, born in Boston in 1948, made the quiet voice and the acoustic guitar a force to be reckoned with at a time when everybody else was turning up. His self-titled debut in 1968 gave the world "Carolina in My Mind", but the real breakthrough came in 1970 with Sweet Baby James: the gentle title track, the easy roll of "Country Road", and the hushed, aching "Fire and Rain", which went to number 3 on the singles chart.
Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon followed in 1971, with his reading of Carole King's "You've Got a Friend" becoming his first number-one hit. That same year he took the lead role in Monte Hellman's film Two-Lane Blacktop. Gorilla, in 1975, found him loosening up on "Mexico", and his 1976 Greatest Hits went on to sell 11 million copies in America alone.
He has outlasted every trend since, earning 6 Grammys, a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Kennedy Center Honors. He finally scored his first number-one album in America in 2015 with Before This World, and he is still out on the road.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by James Taylor on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fire And Rain | 17 | #68 | – | – | |
| 2 | Sweet Baby James | 14 | #66 | – | – | |
| 3 | You've Got a Friend | 9 | #174 | – | – | |
| 4 | Carolina in My Mind | 9 | #220 | – | – | |
| 5 | Country Road | 2 | #288 | – | – | |
| 6 | Mexico | 2 | #525 | – | – | |
| 7 | You Can Close Your Eyes | 1 | #1462 | – | – | |
| 8 | Shower the People | 1 | #801 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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