Livingston Taylor
Singer-songwriter Livingston Taylor was born in Boston on November 21, 1950 and raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina from age two, when the Taylor family moved there due to his father’s new position as dean of the University of North Carolina Medical School. Brother of singer-songwriter James, the late, great blues rocker Alex, singer-songwriter Kate and former working musician (now innkeeper) Hugh, he’s a faculty member at Berklee School of Music, where he teaches a course in stage performance.
1970-1999 Albums
In 1970, Taylor became one of the first artists (along with bluesman James Montgomery) to sign with Georgia-based Capricorn Records and he recorded three albums for the label: his eponymous debut (1970), Liv (1971) and Over the Rainbow (1973). Brother James and Carly Simon sang backing vocals on one Over the Rainbow track, “Be My New Horizon.”
In the ’80s, Taylor hosted the nationally syndicated television show This Week’s Music and joined the Berklee faculty. He cut two studio albums during the decade, Man’s Best Friend (Epic, 1980) and Life Is Good (Sony, 1988). In the ‘90s, he recorded four studio albums – Our Turn to Dance (Vanguard, 1991), Good Friends (Chesky,1993), Bicycle (Chesky, 1996) and Ink (Chesky, 1997) – and two live discs, Unsolicited Material (Whistling Dog Music, 1994) and Snapshot: Live at the Iron Horse (Whistling Dog, 1999), recorded at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 1998, Razor & Tie Records issued the 18-track compilation Carolina Day: The Livingston Taylor Collection (1970-1980).
2000s activity, Albums, Chart success
Taylor was an artist in residence at the Lowell House at Harvard College from 2000 through 2006 and currently serves as a vice president in the development office there. Since 2010, he’s recorded three studio albums: Last Alaska Moon (Chesky, 2019), Blue Sky (Whistling Dog Music, 2014) and Safe Home (Chesky, 2017). In 2021, Whistling Dog Music released LIVe – 50 Years of Livingston Taylor Live, a five-disc retrospective box set that includes a DVD and a photo book, and The Best of Live: 50 Years of Livingston Taylor, an 11-song collection.
Compared to his megastar brother James, Livingston has had a more modest career in terms of the charts. His best-selling single, “I Will Be In Love With You,” went no higher than #30 in the Billboard rankings and his last top-40 single, “First Time In Love,” was released in 1980. All that commercial “success” stuff aside, his affable personality and intelligent charm as a performer keep him important and relevant, and he has a more-than-substantial fan base. Outside of his musical pursuits, Taylor is an instrument-rated private pilot and lifelong aviation enthusiast.
(by A.J. Wachtel)
