CS&N were excellent songwriters with killer harmonies; they were not “cool” until Neil Young joined up. Neil has always been cool–even on one of his weird tangents. America were Neil Young copycats who were not only uncool but dreadful.
I like a bunch of “uncool” artists; to me, James Taylor was a late example of those Yankee folkies like Tom Rush or Tom Paxton. They really wrote some great tunes, even if their bluesier bits sounded a bit forced to a Texan. Tim Buckley was a starry-eyed folkie until his Welcome to LA days–when he became hot, not cool…
Once you’re out of high school, “cool” becomes less important. I like all the artists mentioned above (damn, time to crank up the turntable). Except for America, of course…
He did a hideous cable TV promotional commercial back in the 80’s. He was forever held in my contempt as a sellout after that. Prior to that, he was a whiney-ass junkie bitch. He and Carly Simon deserved each other, IMHO.
Part of the problem agreeing here is that cool is such a cipher. The opposite of smarmy entertainers (Bobby Bitman) is earnest. The opposite of arrogant, prima donna hair bands (Ted Nugent, when he had hair) is nonchalance.
[QUOTE=Nunzio Tavulari]
JT was the heartthrob of the Ivy League sorority girls and the boy-men who loved them. To everyone else he was the progenitor of a sickeningly cloying movement coming out of California in the early Seventies
[/QUOTE]
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That’s because James Taylor was most often played on MOR/Adult Contemporary radio stations along with the artists who were part of the “sickeningly cloying movement coming out of California” so it was easy to get him mixed up with them.
Thanks for bringing up The Carpenters, because it illustrates the distinction as we perceived it. If nothing else, as a recording artist and “head”, JT had some cool points. In the early 1970s, you could still say that a guy who wore his hair long like that was making a statement to identify with the counterculture. I didn’t know anything about his personality or his early psychiatric issues, which I gather were significant (according to Wikipedia, he got himself admitted to McLean). In an interpersonal level, I imagine he would have been difficult to hang out with, but we didn’t know any of that–probably from the fact that we didn’t like the music, and so didn’t read much about him. Musical taste aside, he struck me at the time as sufficiently cool, in the sense of not being blatantly uncool.
Reading the various arguments and points being made in this thread, it’s remarkable how slippery the very notion of coolness can be. It’s almost impossible to define in terms that are not self referential, and many of the greatest icons of coolness achieved that by violating the prevailing coolness standards of their time. For instance, in the early 1960s the Beatles[sup]1[/sup] went way beyond others–even other pop musicians–in the length of their hair. By performing onstage and seeking to be the center of attention, rock and roll lead singers may violate the usual rule of manliness that you don’t intentionally dress or act out in a way that says “Look at me!”, but they’re almost always cool at least when they are in their prime.
[sup]1[/sup]Speaking of the Beatles, the contrast between early members Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best seem to illustrate the distinction between cool and uncool respectively, at least as far as appearance goes. With regard to Stuart, it’s astonishing to think of a guy, even an artist and musician, wearing his hair that long in early 1962.
I can’t say I ever much cared for James Taylor’s music but a recent book called “Fire and Rain” by David Browne is interesting for the whole 1970 scene in the singer songwriter folks like Paul Simon, CSN and sometimes Y and the Beatles. But the women of my era LOVED the guy
But Taylor did make one of the coolest movies ever in “Two Lane Blacktop” (alright, Warren Oates was the star but interesting that Taylor was cast strictly on his looks on a billboard as a hard edged guy) and he got to boink Joni Mitchell.
The interesting thing is that JT did have a brief moment of cool among the groups that listened to Janis, the Dead, Tull, etc. after “Fire and Rain” was released. It didn’t last very long; it was already over well before he released “You’ve Got A Friend,” but if it hadn’t been, that surely would have killed it dead.
By the mid-1970s, Taylor was so far from cool that if you were a fan of his, you wouldn’t have been able to see cool through the Mt. Wilson telescope.
FWIW, there’s a difference between his life story being cool (sorta), and his music being cool (excepting Sweet Baby James, not at all).
I never thought his LIFE was cool at all! Pathetic loser who somehow made it huge and was endlessly rewarded in spite of his attempts to stay shit-faced for years at a time. Not cool at all. His music annoys me, too, it’s sheer nostalgia hearing it, and not in a good way.
