{"id":4488,"date":"2021-01-30T17:39:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-30T17:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=4488"},"modified":"2021-01-30T17:40:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T17:40:05","slug":"carole-kings-tapestry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=4488","title":{"rendered":"Carole King\u2019s ‘Tapestry’"},"content":{"rendered":"

As it turns 50 HARVEY KUBERNIK celebrates the phenomenal<\/strong>\u00a0build-up to CAROLE KING’s landmark album\u00a0Tapestry\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tapestry,<\/em> by singer\/songwriter and pianist Carole King, was produced by Lou Adler and engineered by Hank Cicalo at A&M Studios in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Released on 10th February, 1971, the LP spent 15 weeks at #1 in the US. Tapestry <\/em>blared worldwide and spun on various radio formats, particularly in North America.\u00a0 The new “progressive” or “underground free-form” radio stations were eager to spotlight their own artists and playlists, separate from the mainstream Top 40. In \u201972, it garnered four Grammy Awards, including Album Of The Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance (Female), Record Of The Year (for \u2018It\u2019s Too Late\u2019) and Song Of The Year ( for \u2018You\u2019ve Got A Friend). The previous year, Quincy Jones had received a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for his version of the Tapestry<\/em> song \u2018Smackwater Jack\u2019.<\/p>\n

Tapestry<\/em> stayed in the US Top 200 for six years, and was the first album by a female performer to sell more than 10 million copies in the US. It generated over 24 million in sales worldwide, making it one of the most successful discs of all time. In 2003, Tapestry<\/em> received another acknowledgement of its significance when it was selected by The Library Of Congress to be included in The National Recording Registry.<\/p>\n

Fifty years after its release, Tapestry<\/em> holds an exalted place in the pantheon of pop music; a triumph of master craftsmanship married to a feminine sensibility that transformed both its audience and the marketplace. Tapestry<\/em> is an album constructed of musical monologues and melodies of infinite possibility and unchallengable fate, just mellow enough to be confortable and just as exciting enough to be engaging. Tapestry<\/em> is aboutthe city of LA as an ongoing dream and a region that King invented out of her relationships.<\/p>\n

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Tapestry <\/em>struck a universal chord at an opportune time in pop and rock music history \u2013 the intersection of folk-rock’s introspective and a socially conscious sense of disturbing forensic romanticism in a planet gone wild, with the escalating rise of West Coast naturalism cantered in LA\u2019s Laurel Canyon.<\/p>\n

Born Carole Joan Klein in \u201942, in Brooklyn, New York, King started learning piano at the age of four, and formed her first band, the vocal quartet The Co-sines, while in high school. A fan of the composing and production team team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, King regularly attended deejay Alan Freed’s Rock ‘n’ Roll shows featuring the likes of Chuck Berry, Larry Williams, and The Everly Brothers.\u00a0 While attending high school, King met budding songwriter Neil Sedaka. Later, in college, she met Paul Simon and Gerry Goffin; she and Goffin forged a writing partnership.<\/p>\n

Don Costa, then head of A&R at ABC-Paramount Records, released King\u2019s debut single on the label, ‘The Right Girl’, in May \u201958. Sedaka then introduced King and Goffin to Don Kirshner, who helmed a publishing company, Aldon Music, with Al Nevins. King and Goffin subsequently signed as staff writers with Nevins and Kirshner’s Aldon Music, located at 1650 Broadway.\u00a0 Lou Adler, who would later produce Tapestry<\/em>, met King in \u201961, when he helmed the West Coast office for Aldon Music.<\/p>\n

Sedaka helped The Co-sines get an audition with Atlantic Records\u2019 Ahmet Ertegun, and simultaneously Jerry Wexler gave her an office meeting to hear her songwriting material. King cut a couple of records under her own name: ‘Oh Neil’\u00a0for the Alpine label \u2013 a response to Sedaka\u2019s own hit ‘Oh! Carol’ \u2013 and ‘Short Mort’ on RCA Victor.<\/p>\n