History needs to be corrected.  In the post Charlie Hebdo attack aftermath, every media outlet said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asked James Taylor to fly to Paris.  Actually, the opposite is true; James Taylor’s wife asked Secretary Kerry to come to Paris.  Nice to know what’s actually driving our diplomatic endeavors…. 

Buried in a recent Billboard interview we find this:

In January, after the Charlie Hebdo murders in France, you sang “You’ve Got a Friend” at a rally in Paris, which Secretary of State John Kerry attended. How did that come about?

At the time of the attacks, my wife and I were in Switzerland, taking vacation time before I went to Paris to do press for a tour of Europe. John and Teresa Kerry are, I would say, our good friends.

Kim was texting him after the attacks and said, “John, I think you need to go to Paris.” They were having a solidarity march two days after the attack. But John had to be in Peshawar, for a secret meeting.

He said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

When he came to Paris, we had dinner and he said, “I’m giving a speech with the mayor tomorrow. James, will you sing ‘You’ve Got a Friend’?”

It was done at the drop of a hat. When I stood up to sing, my guitar wasn’t working. So the mayor [Anne Hidalgo] came over and held her mic in front of my guitar. (link)