Fantasy

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I think you could make a pretty good case that Carole King and Gerry Goffin were the best popular songwriters of the last half of the 20th century. I love Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Everything she sings is deeply felt. Sharon Van Etten Tapestry is performed and produced without pretence. You can hear clearly the subtle twists and turns of the chord progressions, the nuanced choices in harmony. Those vocal harmonies at the end of It’s Too Late and the bridge on Beautiful! Is it wrong to pine for songs of such quality? Songs allowed to shine through as they are, unadorned and utterly remarkable.

King, producer Lou Adler and Taylor in Los Angeles during sessions for Tapestry in 1970. Photograph: Jim McCrary/Redferns Stephin Merritt, the Magnetic Fields New film features exclusive interviews & never before seen performance footage from her landmark 1973 concert on Central Park's famed Great Lawn. Holden, Stephen (1973-08-02). "Carole King: Fantasy: Music Review". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2008-05-15. At its worst, the Carole King sound can potentially verge on becoming elevator or dentist's office music.

15. Welcome Home

Recently I went on a little excursion into Carole King's early '70s discography because I wanted to sort out why the same singer/songwriter who made Tapestry only seems to be remembered for the one album and the songs she wrote that were hits for other people. In doing so I hit upon a couple of discoveries and theories which I will relate to you now: King in Lou Adler’s office holding the four Grammys she won for Tapestry in 1971. Photograph: Jim McCrary/Redferns Tapestry was one of the first records my mother and I bonded over. It was so meaningful to sing in unison with my mom to a guttural, honest account performed by a stranger to whom I felt so inexplicably connected: a friend, a sister, a mother, and somebody’s daughter, a low voice and an attitude. From that point onward, I carried her music and spirit with me. I first heard of Carole King when I was about 16. James Taylor brought her to the attention of the wider world when he asked her to open for him in 1971. But the truth is I had been listening to her most of my life, through the voices of the many women and men who recorded her music. When my sisters and I were growing up, Tapestry was a key record in the house. Our mum also loved James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, who played and sang on it, so it was on in the car a lot. Our mum was from Philly on the east coast, so it was always in my mind that Carole was also a Jewish east-coast girl. She’d write these amazing, emotive songs and sing them in an almost optimistic or carefree voice.

Ken Yerke, Barry Socher, Sheldon Sanov, Haim Shtrum, Kathleen Lenski, Miwako Watanabe, Glenn Dicterow, Polly Sweeney, Robert Lipsett, Gordon Marron - violin Carole’s songs made me want to sing her melodies and her harmonies and I felt closer to her while finding my path as a singer even at that young age. In my 30s, watching her musical on Broadway, I was overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude for her story. It showed the way in which a woman can pursue her own career, have a family and achieve happiness. That is a delicate balance that I strive for in my own life every day. Joan ArmatradingWhen you write a song it’s almost mystical. It feels as if the words just come out and it can be months or even years later you realise: “ That’s what was happening.” I’d love to know who those songs are about. I think female artists are great at just letting it all show. As artists, my sisters and I feel like having Carole always in our lives definitely inspired us. Margo Price The radical thing about Tapestry is its refusal to be iconic. The original Shirelles version of Will You Love Me Tomorrow, arguably the best song of the 60s, is so clearly a masterpiece that King’s own version could never compete with it. Instead, she sings it slowly and plaintively, with no flattering reverb, making the answer to the title, heartbreakingly, “Probably not”. Ouch! Lucy Dacus

When King went on tour in 1971, after releasing “Tapestry” and before recording “Music,” it was with James Taylor and a band they shared including Kortchmar and bassist Charles Larkey, King’s husband at the time. Her memoir includes the thrills of those shows, her first as a headliner in her own right. But, a noted homebody, she writes, “Even with friends on tour, even with my husband there, I often felt lonely and isolated. Normal life seemed a distant dream.” As Kortchmar puts it, “Once she’s onstage, she lights up and she digs it, and she’s very comfortable and happy. It’s before and after that she has doubts about the whole thing.”

13. Love Makes the World

Carole King ... ‘My life has been a tapestry.’ Photograph: Jim McCrary/Ode Records / Lou Adler Archive With this album, King moved into more experimental (for her) realms. Writing the entire album herself, without an outside lyricist, she moves away from the introspective songs of Tapestry and its immediate follow-ups to examine the lives of others, in particular of those less fortunate. It’s presented as a concept album of two unbroken suites of songs that all segue together. Moving beyond the spare arrangements of its predecessors, for Fantasy Carole scored brass and string arrangements and experimented with Latin and funk styles.