The legendary James Taylor will be making a rare stop in the state of Mississippi this Summer.
Taylor and his All-Star Band will play the Brandon Amphitheater on Tuesday, June 13th. Tickets for “An Evening with James Taylor and his All-Star Band” go on sale to the general public Friday at 10 a.m. through LiveNation.com.
The show will mark just the second time Taylor has played in Mississippi in the past twenty years. The show was one of 15 recently added to Taylor’s “US Summer 2023 tour” which begins May 25 in Woodinville, Wa.
The stop in Brandon is also part of a four-show weekly jaunt through the Southeast, as Taylor will also play The Wharf Amphitheater in Orange Beach, Ala. (June 15th), State Farm Arena in Atlanta (June 16th), Oak Mountain Amphitheater in Birmingham, Ala (June 18th and then close out the run with a show at Orion Amphitheater in Huntsville, Ala., (June 20th).
Taylor has sold more than 100 million albums since his first release in the late 1960s. He is considered a master storyteller and songwriter in the industry.
His hits range from “Fire and Rain” to “Country Road” and “You’ve Got a Friend” among many others such as “Something in the Way She Moves”, “Mexico”, “Shower the People”, as well as “Your Smiling Face”, “Carolina In My Mind”, “Sweet Baby James,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”, “Copperline and many others.
Taylor’s impressive and lengthy resume includes winning multiple Grammy Awards and inductions into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2011, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama and followed that up the next year by being awarded the distinguished Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. Both medals are their respective nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence.
In 2015, Taylor received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2016 he received the Kennedy Center Honors, which are presented annually to individuals who have enriched American culture by distinguished achievement in the performing arts.
Three years ago, during the Covid Pandemic, he released his audio-only memoir, “Break Shot,” detailing his first 21 years. That same year, he released “American Standard,” his 19th studio album, which earned him the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. The release also gave him the honor of being the first artist to have a Billboard Top 10 album in each of the past six decades.
Taylor’s visits to the Gulf South region are well documented over the past several decades. He has headlined the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival several times and has recently played shows in New Orleans at The Smoothie King Center as well as at The Bay Center in Pensacola and the FedEx Forum in Memphis in shows that also included his old friends Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. But live music fans in Mississippi should take this time to enjoy a rare show by the legendary Taylor in the Magnolia State.
