Women's History Month - 1970s Musicians: Carole King, Part 2

Women have made substantial contributions to popular music in particular the field of songwriting. Songwriting, in terms of American Popular Song, has been a largely male dominated field, but there are a few women (e.g. Dorothy Fields and others) who have made a mark. This 2^nd part of two part article will discuss the solo contributions of arguably the greatest female songwriter of the modern era: Carole King.

Carole King was born Carole Klein in 1942 in Brooklyn NY. She played piano in high school and also later moved on to singing. She also later attended Queens College in New York, where she became friends with several people who would become songwriting legends in their own right - Gerry Goffin, Paul Simon and Neil Sedaka.

As we have discussed in my first installment of this series, King teamed with Gerry Goffin to form one of the most prolific songwriting teams as a member of Aldon Music in the fabled Brill Building scene in the 1960s. The team of Goffin and King wrote some of the most memorable hits for many acts during this period.

By the end of the 1960s, King and Goffin had divorced and Carole was beginning to step out on her own as a solo singer-songwriter. This is also the time when Bob Dylan and Paul Simon (Simon and Garfunkel) had success as songwriters who sang their own songs. And James Taylor had released his first solo album and played a pivotal series of shows at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles in July of 1969. Taylor and King would soon become lifelong friends; and James would help to persuade King go out on her own. Within a matter of years, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, The Eagles, Dan Fogelberg, and Jackson Browne would all break out onto the national scene. The singer-songwriter boom was just taking off on both coasts, and Carole King was poised for greatness.

In 1970, after working with Danny Kortchmar briefly, Carole King released her first solo album entitled Writer, which while critically well-received, did not achieve any sense of commercial popularity. Her next album would be quite a different story...

In 1971, King released Tapestry, one of the greatest albums in the entire singer-songwriter movement and King's most successful album critically and financially. The album featured four hits, I Feel The Earth Move, It's Too Late, You've Got A Friend and So Far Away while also featuring solo versions of two previous Goffin/King hits Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow and You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman. The album also featured Carole's singing,which had developed markedly in the previous few years. King's voice was perfectly suited to communicate the emotional intimacy of the songs on Tapestry: a voice with some grit and a good dose of human vulnerability that made the songs resonate that much more. The album spent 15 weeks at #1 on Billboard continued to place in the charts for the next 6 years. It is a milestone in the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s. (King holds the record for longest time for an album by a female to remain at #1 for Tapestry).

King would go on to release several more fine albums throughout the 1970s:

• Carole King: Music (1971)
• Rhymes and Reasons (1972)
• Fantasy (1973)
• Wrap Around Joy (1974)
• Thoroughbred (1976) -- reuniting with Gerry Goffin

Carole Kings Pearls (1980) album would be her last major success as a singer-songwriter in her own right. By the mid 1980s, the singer-songwriter genre had faded in favor of new trends in pop, new wave, and other musical styles. King would soldier on though, writing with others and making guest appearances on other people's albums. She would also venture into environmental activism and other social/political causes.

Through her album Tapestry, Carole King became a voice for all women singer-songwriters of the 1970s and beyond. She demonstrated musical and lyrical integrity on the strength of her songs, many of which have stood the test of time for years.

REFERENCES:

1. Stuart, David, Ryan Sheeler, and Scott Anderson. From Bakersfield to Beale Street: A Regional History of American Rock n Roll, 2^nd Edition. Dubuque IA: Kendall-Hunt Publishing, 2009.

2. Zollo, Paul. Songwriters on Songwriting. Da Capo Press, 2003

3. DVD: The Songmakers Collection, A&E Home Video, 2001