Groups as varied as the Beatles and the Monkees have covered the song-writing of Carole King.
And that’s variety.
King has been writing music for more than 45 years, with a career that has focused on the melancholic and serious more than the giddy and the goofy.
She’s even had a song written about her. Neil Sedaka’s 1959 hit, “Oh Carol” was a nod to King, his high school girlfriend.
Here are five things you should know about the legendary singer-songwriter:
The City: Remember ’69 when The City – made up of King, Danny Kortchmar and Charles Larkey, King’s second husband – released “Now That Everything’s Been Said,” its first and only LP? Not many people do. The record was in demand but out of print until its 1999 reissue, but it was the source of songs such as “Wasn’t Born to Follow” and “Hi-De-Ho (That Old Sweet Roll)” and much of King’s momentum that would carry over to her solo career.
The “Tapestry:” The City never toured, partially because of King’s stage fright, and the group’s debut album was a failure. But James Taylor, who made King’s songwriting even more famous by covering “You’ve Got a Friend” to platinum results, encouraged her to go solo. After the 1970 misstep “Writer” came 1971’s “Tapestry,” which stayed on the charts for more than six years and was one of the top-selling albums of its time.
The album still defines King as an artist and eclipses anything she’s done, including the 100-odd hits she wrote in the early- and mid-1960s (many of them penned with first husband Gerry Goffin), including “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “The Locomotion,” “One Fine Day,” “Chains,” “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman” and “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss).”
The resurgence: King’s live, two-disc “The Living Room Tour” recently debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard charts, her highest chart debut since 1977’s “Simple Things.” The “Living Room” tour, which stops at Red Rocks on Wednesday, spans her long songwriting and performing career and is playing to big houses and happy critics. But if you don’t have the $44.50-$79.50 for a ticket (available via Ticketmaster), the $18 two-disc set is a fine substitute.
The “old and new:” Her new double-disc set kicks off with the “Sesame Street”-like opener, “Welcome to My Living Room,” which sets the stage for the evening and includes the lyric, “I’m gonna play some songs for you/There are so many I’d like to do/If I don’t get to them all, I hope you’ll forgive me/’Cause I’m 62, and there’s so many I’d like to do/Old and new/But I’ll try to do all I can in the time they give me.” King, born Feb., 9, 1942, in Brooklyn, has since turned 63. You can hear it in her voice, which struggles and has sounded better.
The medley: In concert and on the CD, she works through so much of the material she co-wrote with Goffin – “My first husband, my first lyricist and still a very dear friend,” she calls him on the CD – in medley format. And while the method is unfulfilling, with the 45-second soundbites as little more than brief reminders of King’s larger genius, at least she gets the tracks in there.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
