Carolina calling: NC native James Taylor to perform in Raleigh this summer
Legendary singer-songwriter and North Carolina native James Taylor will make a stop in Raleigh while embarking on a cross-country tour this summer.
The six-time Grammy Award winner, who was born in Boston but raised in Chapel Hill, will perform at PNC Arena on June 25, the venue announced Friday.
In April, Taylor will begin a three-week-long tour of Canada. In June, he’s scheduled to begin a month-long tour across the United States, before heading to Europe in September.
On June 24, one day before he stops in Raleigh, Taylor will perform at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte. Taylor will also perform in Columbia, South Carolina, on June 21.
In 1953, when he was three years old, Taylor’s family moved from Boston to Chapel Hill, where his father Isaac Taylor joined the faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill’s medical school (later becoming dean, in 1964).
Growing up in Chapel Hill, Taylor witnessed the early development of Research Triangle Park, and saw his father in the middle of that technology- and innovation-driven transformation of the region in his capacity as the dean of a growing medical school at UNC-CH.
Those early experiences instilled a passion for progressive politics, the singer told The Charlotte Observer in 2012.
Taylor moved to New York as a teenager to pursue his singing career. In 1969, at the age of 21, he released “Carolina in My Mind,” a tribute to his home state that would later become an unofficial anthem for North Carolina, and the unofficial song of UNC-CH.
Over the course of his career, Taylor has sold more than 100 million albums, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a year later, he was recognized with a Kennedy Center Honor.
Pre-sale tickets for the show go on sale Thursday, March 24, at 10 a.m.
General tickets go on sale on Friday, March 25, at 10 a.m.
This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 11:25 AM with the headline "Carolina calling: NC native James Taylor to perform in Raleigh this summer."
