Beautiful

A great songwriter. Writing songs professionally starting at age 20. The A.M. mini-masterpieces with the R&B melodies of her youth, brightened them with the grandeur of her beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein. Many were composed with her songwriting husband in single nights while her children were asleep. Those songs would have been enough to cement her in any songwriting hall of fame. But she had bigger plans, bigger dreams. Carole King was ready to explode into the world. And our ears and hearts would never be the same.

It’s Throwback Thursday and on this day in 1971, King’s second album, Tapestry, was released. By this point in her life, she had divorced her husband, picked up all her belongings and moved to the Laurel Canyon section of California and immersed herself in the singer-songwriter scene (that included Jackson Browne, James Taylor and so many others).

Her songwriting was gorgeous and simply phrased with so much emotion behind every note. The producer, King’s longtime publisher Lou Adler, wanted it to sound like the understated and sought-after demos she recorded when writing for other artists, with the tactile intimacy of a woman at the piano singing straight to you.

Recorded in Studio B at A&M Studios (The Carpenters were occupying Studio A and Joni Mitchell was in Studio C recording her masterpiece Blue), King’s band would sneak into Mitchell’s studio when she wasn’t around (rumor is that the better piano was in there), and Mitchell would come by to sing backing vocals, alongside James Taylor, on the Tapestry recordings of “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”

Her music became synonymous with the Laurel Canyon sound and mixed with her New York upbringing to create songs like no other. I’ve never found King’s vocals to be pitch perfect - there is a different beautifulness to them and how she conveys raw feelings and emotions. She's in the top five singer-songwriters of all-time for me (don’t ask me to name my other four).

Her version of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” is so different from Aretha’s version. It’s not as grandiose, rather like a hand-written letter grasping for the right words. “So Far Away” is a simple and beautiful piano ballad with limited arrangement done expertly with just enough moody counterbalance added to King’s piano and vocals. And the jazz/pop sounds shine on songs like “It’s Too Late” and “I Feel the Earth Move.”

The album was number one on the Billboard charts for a record 15 weeks (still the record for most consecutive weeks at number one by a female solo artist), won four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. "Her songs are like stories or sonic movies," observed Tori Amos. "You want to walk into them. With 'I Feel the Earth Move' or 'It's Too Late', you're right there."

It is an amazing album that everyone should own in some form (I have it on CD and vinyl). It’s songwriting at its best. There are not many perfect albums out there, I think Tapestry is one of them and I discover something new every time I listen to it.