100 Best Albums
- 10 FEB 1971
- 12 Songs
- Tapestry · 1971
- Tapestry · 1971
- Tapestry · 1971
- Tapestry · 1971
- Tapestry · 1971
- Love Makes the World · 2001
- Colour of Your Dreams · 1993
- Tapestry · 1971
- Tapestry · 1971
- Tapestry · 1971
Essential Albums
- 100 Best Albums It would all sound trite, if it weren’t so true: In the late 1960s, a seasoned professional New York songsmith moves to Laurel Canyon, finds her voice in a whole new way and emerges with one of the biggest records of the 1970s. That’s the shorthand history behind Carole King’s 1971 hit Tapestry, an iconic entry in the canon of genre-agnostic singer-songwriters, and the album that marked the dawning of King’s second act. Working alongside like-minded West Coast artists James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, the hitmaking singer narrowed her scope, stripping down and getting personal as a songwriter and a performer—and, in doing so, creating a timeless standard for confessional expression. In a decade dominated by monolithic pop albums, Tapestry became one of the biggest, eventually selling more than 14 million copies. Even before the album’s release, King had helped reshape American pop music as a songwriter, her work often speaking for women as a group: She articulated previously masked vulnerability on The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”, and expressed daring, earthy sensuality on Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman”. But on Tapestry, her second album as a soloist, King reclaims those songs, using them to tell her own story along with a slew of new compositions. Her previous hits had been co-written with her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin, but on Tapestry, King accepted one new songwriting collaborator: Toni Stern, who provided lyrics for “It’s Too Late” and “Where You Lead”. Besides Stern’s sterling contributions, King centered her own words, voice and piano-playing. And throughout Tapestry, her gutting honesty and earnest optimism are channelled with the easy fluency of a veteran pop songwriter. Individually, the songs have long since been woven into pop music’s unconscious: “I Feel The Earth Move” became an instant R&B classic; “You’ve Got A Friend” remains a somehow-never-saccharine pledge of loyalty; and “It’s Too Late” is the break-up anthem to end all break-up anthems. Together, they weave a Tapestry about the power of vulnerability, one that King performs with unflinching and carefree power, wrapping everything in an unpretentious and lovely musical package.
- 1989
- 1982
Artist Playlists
- The heartfelt singer of personal anthems bares her soul.
- Balladeers and piano masters who followed the pop legend's path.
- Soundtracks for the movie that is your life.
- Performing her pop classics that were hits for others.
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
- 1994
Compilations
- 2014
More To Hear
- Weaving new standards into the fabric of pop music.
About Carole King
Carole King examines the complicated realities of love with a tenderness and swagger rare among her more plaintive ’70s folk-rock peers. In the early ’60s, alongside folks like Neil Diamond and her then-husband Gerry Goffin, King was an endlessly versatile Brill Building songwriter. There, she elevated girl-group anthems like The Shirelles’ “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” beyond mere bubblegum, tapped into gospel’s volcanic power alongside a young Aretha Franklin and embraced wistful psychedelia, cowriting the Monkees smash “Pleasant Valley Sunday”. Then declaring her independence with a mix of vulnerable rock and visceral soul, the native New Yorker defined and deepened the singer/songwriter era’s emotional intimacy with albums like her 1971 solo breakthrough, Tapestry. She also wrote the template for transitioning from a behind-the-scenes songwriter into a full-fledged star. Whether pairing her pained explorations of fraying romance with the seductive longing of classic R&B balladry ("It's Too Late") or strutting like a blues singer as she celebrated the life-changing power of lust ("I Feel the Earth Move"), King shaped multiple generations of confessional singers as wildly distinctive as Tori Amos, Erykah Badu, Amy Winehouse and Adele. More to Know • King began learning to play piano from her mother when she was four years old. • Before becoming a staff songwriter for the producer Don Kirshner in the Brill Building in New York, she recorded demo songs with her Queens College classmate Paul Simon. • With her first husband, Gerry Goffin, King wrote more than a dozen Top 10 hits between 1961 and 1968, including “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”, “The Loco-Motion”, “One Fine Day” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”. • King had a massive hit with her 1971 sophomore album, Tapestry, which included her versions of songs she had written that were hits for other singers. The album held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for 15 consecutive weeks and spent a total of 318 weeks on the charts between 1971 and 2011. • King’s list of honours includes four Grammys, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and the Kennedy Center Honors. • In 2014, a musical version of her life, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, opened on Broadway, featuring a selection of songs from early in her career.
- BORN
- 1942
- GENRE
- Pop