On This Day in 1971: James Taylor Lands His Only No. 1 Hit

Friends inspire friends, and one of the best examples of that in rock 'n' roll history is when James Taylor landed a hit with a song written by someone dear to him, Carole King.

It all started with Taylor's 1970 song, "Fire and Rain," in which he sang the line: "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend."

It was around this time that Taylor asked King to be his opening act for a run of shows at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles, but King, primarily a songwriter, was then deeply uncomfortable with performing on stage. She nervously accepted the job.

King kept on writing, too, and Taylor's lyric resonated with her. In turn, she wrote a song called "You've Got a Friend," which Taylor first heard during that week of Troubadour shows.

"Carole's response was, 'Here’s your friend,'" Taylor recalled to Rolling Stone in 2015. "As soon as I heard it, I wanted to play it."

Listen to James Taylor's Version of 'You've Got a Friend'

It wasn't very long after that that Taylor was in the studio working on his 1971 album, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon.

"We had already cut two songs that day, but we still had studio time and a lot of energy," Taylor remembered. "[Producer] Peter [Asher] said, 'Well, why don't you play 'You've Got a Friend'?' We did, and it sounded great."

READ MORE: Top 10 James Taylor Songs

But there was a problem. For one thing, Taylor had not asked King if it was alright to record the song: "I sheepishly called her up and said, 'We didn’t really mean to do it, but we've recorded 'You've Got a Friend,'' and she said, 'Fine, go ahead, put it out,' which was remarkably generous."

It was especially generous given that King had planned to record the song for her own 1971 album, Tapestry. Ironically, Taylor himself played guitar on that version, and guitarist Danny Kortchmar performed on both versions. (Taylor's version included Joni Mitchell on backing vocals.)

"Of course she wants to record that song — it's the best song written by a human being," Taylor recalled to Stephen Colbert in 2026.

Listen to Carole King's Version of 'You've Got a Friend'

Taylor's version of "You've Got a Friend" went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the one and only song of his entire career to do that. Even better was the fact that both Taylor and King won Grammys in 1972 for their respective recordings — Taylor for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and King for Song of the Year.

Ultimately, King's generosity was nothing but reciprocal, as far as she was concerned.

In 2005, King described "You've Got a Friend" as an "absolutely quintessential" track of hers. "It's about a feeling," she said to CBS. "It's uplifting. ... I used to worry about whether the audience would like me or not, and James Taylor helped me through that, because he introduced me to the audience in a way that they were going to like me. He said: 'Here are all your favorite songs.' And [he] listed a few of them, you know and said, 'This woman wrote them!'"

Watch James Taylor and Carole King Perform 'You've Got a Friend' in 1971