We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago….
You heard the term singer-songwriter alot in 1971. Even though songwriters like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor had already released lots of examples, it was seeming to become more of a thing. And 1971 saw lots of songwriters record their own songs and sell zillions of records. One of the more iconic albums to come out of that year was the second Lp from a transplanted New Yorker who had landed in the canyons of LA. That album was, of course, Tapestry from Carole King. It’s also ironic, I think, that King released one of most popular “singer-songwriter” LPs considering how she got her start in the music business. As wonderfully told in the musical “Beautiful” (see it if you can) she worked as a teenager in New York for music publisher Don Kirshner, writing (with her future husband Gerry Goffin) songs for other people to sing. In fact, two of the songs on Tapestry were hits for other people first…
To escape her divorce and start new she left for California in 1968 and hooked up with guitarist Danny Kortchmar and bassist Charles Larkey to form a band called “The City”. They released one LP that quickly disappeared although you can find it now on You Tube.
After a first solo effort in 1970 simple called Writer was mostly ignored…she hunkered down with producer Lou Adler and a collection of masterful LA musicians including her friends Joni and James and recorded Tapestry. which has sold over 14 million copies, spent 15 straight weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts. spent more time on the chart 318 weeks than any other Lp save for Dark Side of The Moon. It won Grammys for Album of The Year, best Female pop Vocal and Song Of The Year.
Using spare arrangments that accentuated the playing of Kortchmar, Larkey, Curtis Amy on woodwinds , Russ Kunkel on drums, Ralph Schuckett’s electric piano(check out Smackwater Jack) and King’s own acoustic piano, it allowed the songs to stand out. And what songs they were. Even for someone like King, who had written hits and classics throughout her career, the album was amazing in the quality of the songs. From the first notes of I Feel The Earth Move onward through So Far Away, It’s Too Late, You’ve Got A Friend, Way Over Yonder and on and on. Even the more lightweight tunes like Home Again and Beautiful, which might have seemed sappy in other hands just come out as joyous.
When it came to finishing the LP Adler told her she needed another song to end the record. So she sat down and banged out a dynamite version of You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman…Aretha be damned.
You can argue that the LP came out at the perfect apex of music fans being interested in the more introspective tunes of their musical artists, a burgeoning LA scene and the rise of the feminist movement, but without the overall quality of the songs, singer and players, it’s easy to believe that it would never have achieved what it did.
It’s just a great record…put it on and remember when you heard it for the first time….
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