From the Gazette, July 5, 1963

Probably the most outstanding young folksinger on the Island is young James Taylor, son of Dr. and Mrs. Isaac Taylor of Chapel Hill, N. \C., and Chilmark. Monday night at the Moon-Cusser Coffee House Hootenanny*, 15-year-old, barefoot James got up and entertained the audience with his sincere folksinging, accompanying himself on the guitar. The general opinion of everyone who has heard and seen James perform must be that for a young boy, he is definitely talented and has quite a performing career ahead of him.

For the first Hootenanny the coffee house had quite an assortment of performers, among them Tom Phillips of New York, who at one point warned the audience to beware of the next song, since the notes would tend to be quite ear piercing. With his very polite warning a fuzzy faced viewer in the front remarked in a rather sarcastic way, “So shaddap and sing!”

Other singers were Carol Hobart of Greenwich, Conn., and a summer resident of Edgartown; Bob Moment, Sue Blackmar and James Taylor, who have started a young up-Island singing group which with practice might prove to be a very worthwhile trio; and Mike Cane, who sings with the Slimy River Bottom Boys of Boston. The Slimy River Bottom Boys is an apparent take-off of the well-known Charles River Valley Boys.

John Redman was also up there singing, accompanied on the guitar by James Taylor.

*A hootenanny, for those uninitiated into the mores of folksinging, seems to be an occasion when anybody who wants to can get up there and sing.