Double Dose of Carole King
I'm listening to WCBS FM (golden oldies station in NYC) this morning. In the last hour, they've played two songs by Carole King. One that I'm sure you'd recognize as hers – “So Far Away” - and one that you might not know is hers – “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”.
Of all the Woodstock-era female singers - Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, and Carole King (apologies if I've left anyone out) - Carole King might be my favorite. What I find most intriguing and appealing about her music is that she wrote some of the most popular music of the late 1950s and early 1960s before taking a turn behind the mike herself. “One Fine Day”, “A Natural Woman”, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”, “Up On The Roof”, and “Pleasant Valley Sunday” are but a handful of the many songs she wrote with partner and then-husband Gerry Goffin. Then in 1968, she released her first album, aptly titled “Now That Everything’s Been Said”.
Taking nothing away from Baez, Collins, and Mitchell, who are incomparably talented, it takes extraordinary talent to succeed writing one type of music and then to enjoy equal success singing entirely different music. “Tapestry”, rich with songs like “So Far Away”, “I Feel the Earth Move”, “It's Too Late”, and "You've Got a Friend", is one of the best folk rock albums of all time. Time to amend the one glaring hole in my CD collection and buy some Carole King.