James Taylor and Carole King are seen performing here together today and in archival footage from the early 1970s when, along with other artists including Joni Mitchell, they merged pop, rock and folk and moved musical lyrics from the political to the deeply personal. As with “official” histories from the Soviet Union, it’s interesting to see who has been airbrushed out of existence. Carly Simon, a key player in this period and musical genre, is never seen, cited or mentioned here. Is this because she was once married to James Taylor? And how can any history of L.A. music in the early 1970s omit Gram Parsons? One figure takes a rather nasty swipe at gonzo music critic Lester Bangs because of his over-the-top criticism of Taylor. This seems rather gratuitous and mean, as Bangs died in 1982 and isn’t here to defend himself.

Kortchmar takes a gratuitous swipe at rock critics who had the gall to suggest that some of this music wasn’t all genius material. “Nobody remembers Lester Bangs, but everyone remembers James Taylor,” says Kortchmar. “The music always wins — always.” Since Bangs isn’t around to defend himself, and as someone who edited some of Lester’s terrific prose, I’ll assert this: Bangs’ writing will be remembered as long as Danny Kortchmar’s contribution to music, to say the very least.

Kortchmar must be out of his mind: “Nobody remembers Lester Bangs...

* By the end of the decade it had become obvious that perhaps the one constant of our variegated and strung-out peer groups was a pervasive sense of self-consciousness that sent us in grouchy packs to ugly festivals just to be together and dig ourselves and each other, as if all of this meant something greater than that we were kids who liked rock 'n' roll and came out to have a good time, as if our very styles and trappings and drugs and jargon could be in themselves political statements for any longer than about fifteen stoned seconds, even a threat to the Mother Country! So we loved and loved and doted on ourselves and our reflections in each other even as the whole thing got out of hand and turned into mud and disaster areas and downs and death.
o "James Taylor Marked for Death" (1971), p. 66

* The trend toward narcissistic flair has been responsible in large part for smiting rock with the superstar virus, which revolves around the substituting of attitudes and flamboyant trappings, into which the audience can project their fantasies, for the simple desire to make music, get loose, knock the folks out or get 'em up dancin.' It's not enough just to do those things anymore; what you must do instead if you want success on any large scale is figure a way of getting yourself associated in the audience's mind with their pieties and their sense of "community," i.e., ram it home that you're one of THEM; or, alternately, deck and bake yourself into an image configuration so blatant or outrageous that you become a culture myth.
o "James Taylor Marked for Death" (1971), p. 67

* The extravagant and ostentatious lifestyles that pass for charisma in a time when almost anybody talks about charisma but if you think about it there's precious little to be seen.
o "James Taylor Marked for Death" (1971), p. 69

* What all this posturing and fake glamor results in is a vast detachment and cynicismbr on the part of the artists. Since it's impossible to have respect for an audience that'll take just about anything you care to dish out, and the impassive demeanor is so central to the role, a general numbnose is all that can be expected.
o "James Taylor Marked for Death" (1971), p. 70