JT's seen fire ... and thanks to the Pats and now the Red Sox, he's seen reign. Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

James Taylor, a Red Sox fan, performed America the Beautiful before Boston's home opener. His summer concert tour begins in June.

SI: You've played prior to Red Sox games a couple of times now. How did your relationship come about with the Sox?

Taylor: My wife Kim has a connection with the Sox. She was a Yankee fan growing up. Then she went to work for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa. He was the conductor of the orchestra and the Red Sox were his main priority. He has since moved to the Vienna Opera but he was a rabid, certifiable Sox fan and Kim worked with him for 20 years. Over that period of time, she got hooked. So when she and I got together, I got pulled into the mix. Growing up in North Carolina there wasn't much of an attachment to baseball. I wasn't really a fan until I moved up to Massachusetts. It's really since meeting Kim and being exposed to her level of her fanaticism, the poor suffering Sox addict that she is, that I got really into it.

SI: Are you a big sports fan?

Taylor: I follow the Patriots and I think what Bob Kraft and his organization have done is really quite amazing. Aside from the Red Sox and the Patriots, most of my focus has been on non-team sports. Generally speaking, the sports that I have done have been individual sports. I cycle, kayak, hike, and cross-country ski. I came to it on the way out of a substance abuse problem. It was a way of making myself feel physically better. For about 15 years or so, I was really an exercise fanatic. I think the thing I look forward to the most is the skate and skiing season. I rollerblade wherever I go. My thing is distance skating. I'm usually skating for an hour or two at a time. I've had a couple of bad wipeouts but it's the kind of thing that is good for your joints unless you run into a car.

SI: The Red Sox have seen a lot of dark and troubled days. Does being a Sox fan help with your songwriting?

Taylor: That's a good question. Songwriting is very mysterious thing and I don't know what baubles up. A couple of days ago a lyric came through that dealt with sort of the aspect of waiting for generations and what it was like for Boston fans to wait for such a long time.

SI: As a Red Sox fan, what was it like singing before Game Two of the 2004 World Series?

Taylor: First of all, Fenway is sort of a deeply resonant place in the context of American culture and as a New Englander, it really hits you to be in Fenway. You get this sort of resonate feeling that you are at the center or close to the heartbeat of what is essential American that you can't really find anyplace else. And Fenway Park, by luck or design, we have managed to hold on to it as the park that it is.