Carole King

Brooklyn to Aldon Music

Carole King was born Carol Joan Klein in Manhattan on 9 February 1942. Her mother taught her piano, and at four she was found to have absolute pitch. At James Madison High School in Brooklyn she formed a band called the Co-Sines, changed her name, and made demos with Paul Simon. Her first official record, the promotional single The Right Girl, came out on ABC-Paramount in 1958.

At Queens College she met Gerry Goffin. After Neil Sedaka's hit Oh! Carol showed her that songwriting could be a career, the two joined the staff at Aldon Music. King wrote the music and Goffin the words. Their Will You Love Me Tomorrow, recorded by the Shirelles in 1960, was the first number one by a black girl group. More followed: The Loco-Motion, Up on the Roof for the Drifters, One Fine Day for the Chiffons, Pleasant Valley Sunday for the Monkees and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman for Aretha Franklin. Her own 1962 single It Might as Well Rain Until September reached 22 in the United States and 3 in Britain.

Laurel Canyon

By 1968 King had moved to Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, where she formed the City with the bassist Charles Larkey and the guitarist Danny Kortchmar. They made one album, Now That Everything's Been Said, and disbanded in 1969. King's reluctance to perform live limited its promotion. She met James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, and in May 1970 released her first solo album, Writer, on Lou Adler's Ode label, with Taylor on acoustic guitar. It reached 84 on the Billboard chart.

Tapestry

Tapestry came out on 10 February 1971, produced by Adler. It was recorded that January at A&M Studios while Taylor was making Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon with many of the same musicians, and Mitchell was making Blue in Studio C. King wrote or co-wrote every song. It opened with I Feel the Earth Move, and Toni Stern supplied the words to It's Too Late. King also remade two old Goffin and King numbers, Will You Love Me Tomorrow? and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, and sang So Far Away and You've Got a Friend. Taylor's own recording of the last became his only number one.

The album spent 15 consecutive weeks at number one in the United States and stayed on the charts for over 300 weeks. At the 1972 Grammy Awards it won album of the year, record of the year, song of the year and best female pop vocal. King was the first woman to win song of the year. In Rolling Stone, Jon Landau called it an album of surpassing personal intimacy and musical accomplishment. The Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2003. It has sold around 25 million copies.

The rest of the decade

Music followed in December 1971 and was certified gold days after release. It reached number one on 1 January 1972, and the two albums sat in the top ten together for weeks. Rhymes & Reasons went to number two in 1972, and Fantasy reached number six in 1973. On 26 May 1973 she played a free concert in New York's Central Park for at least 100,000 people.

Wrap Around Joy (1974) became her third number one album, with Jazzman reaching number two as a single. Thoroughbred in 1976 was her last studio album for Ode, and she reunited with Goffin to write four of its songs. Simple Things in 1977 was her first album since Tapestry to miss the top ten.

Later years and honors

King moved to Idaho in 1977. She made City Streets for Capitol in 1989, and in 2000 re-recorded Where You Lead as the theme for Gilmore Girls. In 2010 she toured with Taylor on the Troubadour Reunion Tour, which sold more than 700,000 tickets.

She received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize in 2013, the first woman to win it, and the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2015. On 3 July 2016 she played Tapestry in full for the first time, at Hyde Park in London, and the Guardian called it her first UK concert in 27 years. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical opened on Broadway in January 2014 and ran for 2,418 performances. She entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 with Goffin as a non-performer, and in 2021 as a solo artist.