Carole King - Biography
By J Poet
Carole King is one of the best selling pop artists of all time. Her landmark record, Tapestry (1971 Ode, 2007 Epic Legacy), is one of he best selling albums of all time and helped launch the 1970s pop singer/songwriter movement. The album won four Grammys - Record of the Year for the single of “It’s Too Late,” Album of the Year for Tapestry, Song of the Year for “You’ve Got a Friend,” and Best Female Pop Vocal - Album for Tapestry. The album stayed on the charts for seven years and sold over ten million copies. She never had another blockbuster, but racked up four more gold and platinum albums before semi-retiring from performing in 1980.
Even before becoming the most successful female singer/songwriter in American history, King was already a music business legend for the songs she wrote with her husband Gerry Goffin in the early 60s. King was born in Brooklyn NY in 1942 and was playing piano by age four. She loved rock and roll and met future songwriters Paul Simon, Neil Sedaka and Gerry Goffin at Queens College. Sedaka encouraged her songwriting and wrote his first hit, “Oh Carole,” in her honor. He introduced her to Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann and helped her and Goffin get a gig writing for Don Kirshner and Al Nevins in the famed Brill Building. In 1961 the King/Goffin team had their first big hit, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” a #1 song for the Shirelles. For the first half of the 1960s the King/Goffin team was on fire and scoring hits for Bobby Vee –“Take Good Care of My Baby,” Little Eva – “The Locomotion,” The Chiffons – “One Fine Day,” The Monkees – “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” The Drifters – “Up on the Roof,” The Cookies and The Beatles - “Chains,” Aretha Franklin – “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman,” The Crystals – “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss),” Freddie Scott – “Hey Girl,” Earl-Jean McCrea and Herman's Hermits – “I'm into Something Good,” and The Animals “Don't Bring Me Down.”
A mid-1960s Goffin, King, and Al Aronowitz started an indie label, but it went nowhere. King and Goffin divorced and King moved to Los Angeles with her daughters. King was relatively inactive during this period, although she did continue to write both music and lyrics. In 1968 she had two cuts on the Strawberry Alarm Clock’s The World in a Seashell (1968 Uni) – “Lady of the Lake” and “Blues for a Young Girl Gone.” That same year she formed she formed The City with bassist Charles Larkey, who she later married and future superstar session drummer Danny Kortchmar, who introduced her to his singing friend James Taylor. They cut one album, Now That Everything's Been Said (1969 Ode), and broke up.
Ode president Lou Adler had faith in King’s vocals and kept her on Ode as a solo artist. Writer (1970 Ode, 2008 Epic Legacy) was mostly Goffin/King compositions, and included “Goin’ Back” later covered by The Byrds. It’s a solid acoustic flavored outing, similar in feel to her career making follow up Tapestry (1971 Ode, 2007 Epic Legacy.) The album stayed on the charts for seven years, sold over ten million copies in the US alone and swept the Grammys winning King four awards. It went multi-platinum almost on release and “I Feel the Earth Move,” “So Far Away,” “It's Too Late,” and “You’ve Got a Friend’ all went Top 10 making the album an instant Greatest Hits collection.
King has severe stage fright, so she didn’t do much touring, but she followed up her magnum opus with five more gold albums Music (1971 Ode, 2004 Epic Legacy), Rhymes and Reason (1972 Ode, 2008 Epic Legacy), Fantasy (1973 Ode, 1997 Epic), Wrap Around Joy (1974 Ode, Epic Legacy) with the #1 hit “Jazzman,” and Thoroughbred (1976 Ode, 2008 Sony.) In 1975 she wrote music for the animated cartoon of Maurice Sendak’s Really Rosie. He wrote the words and the Really Rosie Soundtrack (Ode, 2004 Epic) is the underestimated gem of King’s catalogue.
She moved to Capital in the late 1970s for Simple Things (1977 Capital), her last high charting album. Welcome Home (1978 Capital), and Touch the Sky (1979 Capital) barely got on the charts. Pearls: Songs of Goffin and King (1980 Scarface, 1994 Priority) is as good in its way as Tapestry, but didn’t find an audience on its release.
One to One (1982 Atlantic) is another fine collection, while Speeding Time (1983 Atlantic) updates more Goffin/King classics with new wave synth arrangements. She guested on B.B. King’s Why I Sing the Blues (1983 MCA) and wrote the theme song for The Care Bears Movie in 1985. City Streets (1989 Capitol) is another solid collection, boosted by Eric Clapton’s guitar and in 1991 she co-wote Miriah Carey’s “It It’s Over” for her album Emotions (1991 Columbia). In 2001 King started her own logo and released Love Makes the World (1991 Rockingale/Koch International) which included guest shots by k.d. lang, Celine Dion, Babyface, and Wynton Marsalis. King returned to the live stage in 2005 with The Living Room Tour a low-key presentation of her varied catalogue. The Living Room Tour (2005 Concord/Rockingale) is a charming live album with 21 tracks full of mellow good vibes.
King moved to Idaho in 1977 and has been involved in environmental and political causes since then. She works with the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and supports the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA). She appears on TV now and again, most notably as Sophie, the owner of the Stars Hollow music store on the Gilmore Girls. Goffin and King were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her songwriting in 1990, received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and, with Goffin, received a Grammy Trustees Award in 2004. King was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007. The best Best Of to pick up is Natural Woman: The Very Best Of Carole King (2000 Epic/Sony). in 2011 she released A Holiday Carole.