We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
1972 saw an unbelieveable amount of singer-songwriter LPs. An many of them were outstanding in their own ways. The creative environment was rife with subject matter and no end of the folks who wanted to comment on the human condition.
Few did it better than Carole King, who many suggest jump-started the movement with “Tapestry” a couple of years earlier. In October of 72 came “Rhymes & Reasons” and while it’s no “Tapestry”, it’s not bad.
That’s the thing…when you have already recorded an album that may be the best of it’s genre…where do you go from there. Even a middle of the road LP like this one still sparkles compared to it’s competition on the charts.
It’s certainly a more subdued album…some critics called it sad in the sense that the songs seem to suggest that the writer was in a melancholy mood.
I think that’s true with tunes like “Feeling Sad Tonight” (pretty much on the nose) , “Gotta Get Through Another Day” and “Goodbye Don’t Mean I’m Gone” in which she speaks on the problems of juggling a career lived in airports & hotels, motherhood and a romantic relationship.
But she can still be the upbeat earth mother when she sings “Come Down Easy’, “Peace In The Valley” and my two faves on the record, ‘Bitter With The Sweet” and “Been To Canaan”.
Most of the tunes she wrote herself or with Toni Stern but she also collaborates with bassist Charles Larkey for the beautiful “The First Day Of August” and old hubby Gerry Goffin for a tasty track called “Ferguson Road”.
The band is tight led by Larkey, Danny Kortchmar, Harvey Mason and some tasteful horn fills from the crack section of Harry “Sweets” Edison, Bobby Bryant, George Bohanon and Ernie Watts.
But King’s piano is front and center as it usually is…and with her calming, familiar voice and lyrical sensibility…she delivers again.
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