Before returning to London to head the publicity for the Beatles' Apple Corps organisation in 1968, he worked as the publicist for California-based bands such as the Byrds, the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas.
[4] Taylor started his career as a local journalist on the Wirral, now part of Merseyside, aged 17 working for the Hoylake and West Kirby Advertiser followed by the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.
The term "pocket symphony" is generally attributed to Taylor for his description of the Beach Boys' 1966 single "Good Vibrations".
A trusted confidant of the Beatles, Taylor remained particularly close to George Harrison long after the band's break-up and maintained a friendship with John Lennon until the latter's murder in 1980.
[9] He also encouraged nascent rock journalists to perceive Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson as a musical genius.
[10][11] Using his connections in Britain, Taylor ensured that the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds received a level of acclaim from UK music critics and Wilson's peers, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney, that had not been forthcoming in the United States.
In April 1968, at Harrison's request, Taylor returned to England to work for the Beatles again, as the press officer for their newly created Apple Corps.
"[16] That same year, Taylor provided uncredited contributions to the lyrics of two songs issued on the band's double album, The Beatles: "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and "Savoy Truffle".
[19] Between 1968 and 1970, Taylor had a major role in the company's activities, leading the publicity campaigns for the band's projects and for those of the other artists signed to Apple Records.
[21][22] With the appointment of Allen Klein as Apple's business manager in early 1969 – leading to a period that Taylor later described as "miserable" – expenditure and staff numbers were cut back drastically.
[23] While describing Taylor as a "lavish spender", author Nick Talveski notes that much of his job entailed denying the media access to the Beatles.
Talveski adds: "To his eternal credit, Taylor nevertheless became one of the most popular professionals in the [music] industry, one of very few men to perfect the art of saying 'no' graciously.
[24] Taylor left the company in late 1970, having outlasted most of the other senior employees there, thanks to the affection and high regard in which he was held by Lennon, Harrison and Starr.
[25] In April that year, Taylor had confirmed The Beatles' break-up using deliberately vague terms, partly to mask his sadness: Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John and George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope.
[5] Taylor served as Director of Special Projects, working with artists such as the Rolling Stones, Yes, America, Neil Young, Vivian Stanshall, Carly Simon and Alice Cooper.
[30] He subsequently wrote his own autobiography, Fifty Years Adrift, published in December 1983 by Genesis, for which Harrison provided a glowing introduction to the signed, limited-edition volume.
In 1987, Taylor's It Was Twenty Years Ago Today (published by Bantam Press in the UK, and Fireside for Simon & Schuster in the US)[31] celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the release of the Beatles' Sgt.
[32] The book includes archive interviews and photographs as well as extensive transcripts from a Granada TV documentary, which was also titled It Was Twenty Years Ago Today and for which Taylor served as consultant.
[33][34] In the UK Bois Books published What You Cannot Finish and Take A Sad Song in 1995, coinciding with the release of the Beatles Anthology (Taylor was extensively interviewed for the TV program).
[20] His funeral took place in Sudbury, Suffolk on 12 September, attended by family and friends such as Harrison, Aspinall, Palin, Neil Innes and Jools Holland.
In 2013, American singer and Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks revealed that she had had a brief affair with Taylor in the late 1970s, and that she wrote the song "Beautiful Child", included in the album Tusk, about him.