Carole King's Tapestry

I just got a CD version of Tapestry by Carole King. Nice, maybe I will now find the guts to retire the LP. Nicer still, I got it right after I finished reading Girls Like Us. That is a book by Sheila Weller about Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon with James Taylor as main leading man. What a book! It tells everything fans have always wanted to know about these three women. They not only made wonderful music but also pushed the feminism to then unheard of boundaries. Maybe I’ll read it again with Tapestry playing in the background.

I like the way the booklet introduces this CD edition of Carole’s iconic album. “Tapestry, the landmark recording by singer-songwriter-pianist Carole King was released in March, 1971 with little fanfare. Thirty-seven years later, it 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. If Jane Austen came back as a gutsy, guileful, Brooklyn girl with a knack for a lyrical and musical hook, she’d be Carole King.”

How very true and it also helped that the album came along just as the simmering feminist movement from the ‘60s was ready to explode. Just like Carole. She had been writing hit songs since she was a teenager, among them Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow with boyfriend and later husband Gerry Goffin. She had been immortalized by Neil Sedaka in the song O Carol. It was about time she performed her own songs and released her own album. She was ready for her turn and that turned out to be Tapestry.

The contents of the album are simply incredible. The songs are not only heartfelt expressions, each of them is hit material and mind you, those two things do not always go together in the music business. From the catchy opening of I Feel the Earth Move, the LP or in the present case, the CD, fluidly segues to So Far Away, It’s Too Late, Home Again, Beautiful, Way Over Yonder, You’ve Got a Friend, Where You Lead, Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, Smackwater Jack, Tapestry and You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman. Wow. This is the sort of album, producers, artists, buyers and even store clerks dream of.

The music industry agreed. Tapestry was named Album of the Year at the Grammys. The Record of the Year was It’s Too Late from Tapestry. Song of the Year was You’ve Got a Friend, the JT version. Best Contemporary Vocal Female went to Carole while Best Contemporary Vocal Male went to JT again. And the Best New Artist was Carly with That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be.

1971 was indeed a great year for the female singer-songwriter. Aside from Carole breaking out with Tapestry and Carly having That’s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be, there was also the Joni, the beautiful Bohemian from Canada, who composed Both Sides Now and now had her own hit with Big Yellow Taxi. And take note of what big sisters they had! Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, etc. And of the men who were hanging around them loving, leaving, nurturing or simply pushing them around. Aside from JT who was friend to Carole, lover to Joni and husband to Carly, there were Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Jackson Browne even Warren Beatty and Sean Connery, etc.

What a life! What a time!

And here are the other songs that made the soundtrack. The hits of 1971 were Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones; Family Affair by Sly & the Family Stone; Go Away Little Girl by Donnie Osmond; How Can You Mend a Broken Heart by the Bee Gees; It’s Too Late by Carole; Joy to the World by Three Dog Night; Just My Imagination Running Away from Me by The Temptations; Maggie May by Rod Stewart; Me & Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin; and One Bad Apple by The Osmonds.

The biggest selling albums were All Things Must Pass by George Harrison; Chicago III by Chicago; Every Picture Tells a Story by Rod Stewart; Jesus Christ Superstar by Various Artists; Love Story, the movie soundtrack by Francis Lai; Mud Slide & the Blue Horizon by James Taylor; Pearl by Janis Joplin; Shaft, the movie soundtrack; Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones; and Tapestry by Carole.