Carole King , who celebrated her 79 birthday yesterday, is an American singer-songwriter who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist. She is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005.
King attended Queens College, where she met Gerry Goffin, who was to become her songwriting partner. When she was 17, they married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island in August 1959 after King became pregnant with her first daughter, Louise. They quit college and took day jobs, Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary. They wrote songs together in the evening. During the sixties, with King composing the music and Goffin writing the lyrics, the two wrote a string of classic songs for a variety of artists. King and Goffin were also the songwriting team behind Don Kirshner’s Dimension Records, which produced songs like “The Loco Motion” for their babysitter Little Eva, and “It Might As Well Rain Until September” which King recorded herself in 1962—her first hit. King recorded a few follow-up singles in the wake of “September”, but none of them sold much, and her already sporadic recording career was entirely abandoned (albeit temporarily) by 1966.
King moved to Laurel Canyon, where she met James Taylor and Joni Mitchell as well as Toni Stern, with whom she collaborated on songs. King made her first solo album, Writer, in 1970 for Lou Adler’s Ode label, with Taylor playing acoustic guitar and providing backing vocals. It peaked at number 84 in the Billboard Top 200. King followed Writer in 1971 with Tapestry, which featured new compositions as well as reinterpretations of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” The album was recorded concurrently with Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim, with an overlapping set of musicians. Both albums included “You’ve Got A Friend”, which was a number 1 hit for Taylor; King said in a 1972 interview that she “didn’t write it with James or anybody really specifically in mind. But when James heard it he really liked it and wanted to record it”.
Tapestry was an instant success. With numerous hit singles – including a Billboard No.1 with “It’s Too Late” – Tapestry held the No.1 spot for 15 consecutive weeks, remained on the charts for nearly six years, and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. The album garnered four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year; Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; Record of the Year (“It’s Too Late,” lyrics by Toni Stern); and Song of the Year, with King becoming the first woman to win the award (“You’ve Got A Friend”). The album appeared on RollingStone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list at number 36.
Carol King: Music was released in December 1971, certified gold on December 9, 1971. It entered the top ten at 8, becoming the first of many weeks Tapestry and Carole King: Music simultaneously occupied the top 10. The following week it rose to No.3 and finally to No.1 on January 1, 1972, staying there for three weeks. The album also spawned a top 10 hit, “Sweet Seasons” (US No.9 and AC No.2). Carole King: Music stayed on the Billboard pop album charts for 44 weeks and was eventually certified platinum.
Rhymes and Reasons (1972), and Fantasy (1973) followed, each earning gold certifications. Rhymes and Reasons produced another hit, “Been to Canaan” (US No.24 and AC No.1), and Fantasy produced two hits, “Believe in Humanity” (US No.28) and “Corazon” (US No.37 and AC No.5), as well as another song that charted on the Hot 100, “You Light Up My Life” (US No.67 and AC No.6). In 1973, King performed a free concert in New York City’s Central with 100,000 attending. In late 2012, the Library of Congress announced that King had been named the 2013 recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song – the first woman to receive the distinction, given to songwriters for a body of work. King was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year in January 2014. On December 6, 2015, she was honoured as a Kennedy Centre Honouree.
