Posted on 03/04/2011 4:47:35 AM PST by IbJensen
Washington (CNSNews.com) – James Taylor, recognized at the White House on Wednesday for his musical achievement, told reporters that President Barack Obama has been too modest about his accomplishments.
In a White House ceremony, Obama presented Taylor and other artists, authors, poets and entertainers with the 2010 National Medal of Arts. The announcer of the ceremonies said, “His distinctive voice and masterful guitar playing are among the most recognized in popular music and his expansive catalog of songs has had a profound influence on songwriters and music lovers from all walks of life.”
Taylor said he supported Obama in the 2008 presidential race.
“We did work in Massachusetts but mostly in North Carolina, back down in my home state, and worked down there for a while,” Taylor said after stopping in the press briefing room after accepting the medal. “Obama carried the state by only 8,000 votes. So those of us who worked on the campaign down there got a sense that we made a difference.”
A reporter asked about Obama’s 2012 reelection.
“I think that the administration has been almost too modest in their accomplishments,” Taylor said. “And it’s remarkable to me that they get blamed for the problems that the people we elect actually haven’t caused. I’m hoping the American public understands who we got here, what we’ve got in this president, a remarkable leader. It just makes me feel wonderful to see him in this White House. I don’t mean to get too political.”
A staffer then interrupted to say that Taylor could not take any more questions.
During the White House ceremony, Obama also presented the 2010 National Medal of Arts to theater critic Robert Brustein; pianist Van Cliburn; artist Mark di Suvero; poet Donald Hall; musician Quincy Jones; “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee; jazz musician Sonny Rollins and actress Meryl Streep.
Obama presented the 2010 National Humanities Medal citations to Library of America founder Daniel Aaron; historian Bernard Bailyn; educator Jacques Barzun; poet and novelist Wendell E. Berry; Spanish and Latin American literary critic Roberto González Echevarría; American Council of Learned Societies President Stanley Nider Katz; novelist Joyce Carol Oates; biographer and literary critic Arnold Rampersad; novelist Philip Roth; and author and historian Gordon Wood.
Note to self: Delete any James Taylor “music” that might have been mistakenly downloaded. What an asshat!
I have to admit, I’ve never heard that one. My favorite is “Fourth of July” on his October Road album. I love the way he sings about the patriots and the minutemen and the things we believe, we believed in then.... such as freedom. I’m just so disappointed.
That is a remarkable record. Never to be outdone.
And don't forget the debt! That is an even bigger legacy.
Sweet Baby James must be back on smack.
James Taylor - the Chevy Volt of American Pop music.
I couldn’t care less.
Don't forget about Arlo Guthrie. Every Thanksgiving we've got to hear that one trick pony singing about Alice...
WOW. That was sublime.
Funny, the name Roy Buchanan has been bouncing around in my head for many many years because the first (and probably only) time I heard him was about 20 plus years ago and I was transfixed, just as I was by “Messiah”, and I said to myself “that is the GREATEST guitar playing I’ve ever heard”
Whenever the subject of guitarists came up in conversation
I’d inevitably say “Have you ever heard this guy Roy Buchanan?
And I say this as someone who grew up with Michael Bloomfield’s cousin, and Bloomfield, who hailed from nearby Glencoe, Ill.,about five,six years older than us, would sometimes pop in at our highschool dances and treat us to an impromptu jam. He was amazing, and would usually show up with jeans torn from crotch to below the knee on the inseam, and make a point of prominently displaying that as he played.
I’m going to make listening to RB a regular thing now.
Still nothing that gets me more than blues-grounded music, whether its bigger category is rock, or jazz, or country or whatever. Great music is all alike, it’s simply great.
Too bad Buchanan didn’t do an encore: he was finished a good two minutes before that 9:36 clip ran out, and never came back to the stage.
Can anyone find a link to the hilarious piece Joe Queenan did several years ago on James Taylor? I think it was from GQ. Reading it, my long-simmering resentment and discomfort with the icky music of Taylor and his persona and his unearned Icon status finally came into focus, and I found myself saying
“Yes, Joe’s put his finger on it!”.
And he was so good back in 1970.
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