The Surprising Connection Between James Taylor and the Beatles: Apple Records, a Shared Studio and the Song That Inspired ‘Something’
The 'Fire and Rain' singer-songwriter was the first musician signed to the Beatles' record label
James Taylor has been crafting hit songs for well over 50 years, and given how long the handsome, mellow-voiced singer-songwriter has been in the cultural conversation, it’s easy to forget where he started. Taylor’s self-titled debut album was released in 1968, at the height of the hippie era, and a little band you might’ve heard of played a key role in his early days.
Keep reading to learn all about the surprising connection between James Taylor and the Beatles, from how they helped get his first album off the ground to the fascinating insights he shared about the Fab Four decades after they first crossed paths.
A memorable debut with Apple Records
James Taylor grew up in a musical family and began playing local gigs as a folk singer when he was a teenager in the ’60s. In 1967, at just 19, the musician moved to London, where he met Peter Asher, the head talent scout at the Beatles’ Apple Records. Asher already had a long history with the Beatles, as his sister, actress Jane Asher, had a five-year relationship with Paul McCartney during the height of Beatlemania, and as soon as he heard Taylor’s music, he knew he’d found a rare talent, and he signed the musician to the new label.
Taylor was the first musician to sign with Apple. While his 1968 debut was well-reviewed, it didn’t sell well and Taylor left Apple Records for his next album. Asher believed so strongly in Taylor’s talents that he left with him and became his manager. Taylor’s second album, Sweet Baby James (1970), became a hit, and Taylor and Asher remained lifelong friends.
The early bond between James Taylor and the Beatles
Taylor recorded his debut album in the same studio where the Beatles were recording The White Album, and recounting his early years in a 2020 interview with The Guardian, he said, “We intersected in the studio a lot. They were leaving as I was coming in. I often came in early and would sit in the control room and listen to them recording—and hear playbacks of what they had just cut.” At the time, tensions were high in the band, and Taylor said that when he was in the studio with them, he witnessed “a slow unraveling, but it was also an extremely creative unraveling.”
While they were in the studio together, the Beatles contributed to Taylor’s debut directly, as Paul McCartney played bass on his song “Carolina in My Mind” and George Harrison contributed uncredited backing vocals to the poignant tune.
James Taylor and the Beatles also mutually inspired each other. One of the standout songs on his debut, “Something in the Way She Moves” is familiar to any Beatles fan, as Harrison borrowed the title phrase for the lyrics of the classic 1969 Beatles ballad “Something.” Taylor had no issue with Harrison copying him, and admitted that he drew from the Beatles in his own music, so it went both ways.
James Taylor’s ‘bad influence’ on the Beatles
James Taylor and the Beatles may have shared a creatively fruitful partnership, but it wasn’t all fun and games. Taylor had been struggling with his mental health and was in the throes of heroin addiction at the time, and he told The Guardian, “Well, I was a bad influence to be around the Beatles at that time, too. Because I gave John opiates,” and this increasing drug usage would contribute to rising drama in the band before their 1970 breakup.
Fond memories of the Fab Four
Taylor called being signed to Apple Records “an impossibly fortuitous big break” and told People that when he first stepped into the recording studio with the Beatles, “It was like, ‘Holy cow, I can’t believe this.’”
As anyone would be, Taylor was starstruck by his time with the Beatles, and decades later, he’s never forgotten the impact they had on his career, saying, “I mean, I was a huge Beatles fan. I emulated and stole from the Beatles. I copied them as much as I could, you know, so it was remarkable.”
The Beatles’ cultural impact is impossible to overstate—and the fact that they gave James Taylor the platform needed to go from unknown folk singer to musical icon made for one of the most impressive crossover moments in rock history.
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