Carole King - A natural woman

Sweet Carole, a tousled mane of unruly curls hiding her shyness. Carole at the window in the half-light, bell-bottoms and bare feet, alone with her cat Telemachus, in her house on Appian Way in Laurel Canyon, keeping a safe distance from the spotlight she has feared since the day of her debut. They call it stagefright, the fear of facing the stage. And not even a suitcase full of hits will ever be enough to fully overcome it. Carole's surname is Klein, but King sounds better. A regal name, fitting for the talent of that child prodigy at the piano who had bewitched Neil Sedaka at Queens College (it was to her that he dedicated the famous "Oh, Carol"). She starts playing piano at four and in high school forms her first group, the Co-Sines. Her thoroughbred talent as a songwriter quickly carries her up the ladder of success, but it's also her charm that opens doors for her. Still waters that move rocks, the very young Carole from Brooklyn, New York (February 9, 1942): she first pierces the heart of Paul Simon, then (above all) that of composer Gerry Goffin, whom she marries, pregnant, at just 17. The couple has two daughters and produces an impressive string of hits: together with the duo Bacharach-David, they become the most successful songwriting tandem of the Sixties.

The King-Goffin style is unique, setting itself apart from the clichés of the era: it's no coincidence that the Beatles themselves, in their early days, declared they wanted to model themselves on those two Midas kings of American pop. Their hits are a godsend for many vocal groups of the time, from the Shirelles, to whom they gift the splendid "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", to the Everly Brothers, honored with "Chains" and "I Can't Say Goodbye To You", through Little Eva ("The Loco-Motion"), the Cookies ("Don't Say Nothing Bad About My Baby"), the Carpenters ("It's Going To Take Some Time"), the Monkees ("Pleasant Valley Sunday", "Porpoise Song") and the Drifters ("Some Kind Of Wonderful"). But among those blessed by the grace of the King-Goffin duo there are also first-magnitude stars such as The Animals ("Don't Bring Me Down"), Blood, Sweat & Tears ("Hi-De-Ho"), Rod Stewart ("Oh No Not My Baby"), Laura Nyro ("Up On The Roof") and Aretha Franklin, who takes the anthem "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" to success.

But overwhelming success collides with emotional turmoil, leading the couple to divorce in 1968. Time leaves painful marks on Carole's fresh, collegiate face. California and its star-grinding machine, her marriage to Gerry in pieces, followed by divorce and a second marriage to bassist Charles Larkey (himself soon left behind as well).

Thus begins a period of personal crises and artistic setbacks, such as her first solo album, Writer (1970).

Though hampered by somewhat flat arrangements and lackluster production, the album nonetheless confirms young Carole's thoroughbred talent, capable of painting ballads of great tenderness ("Child Of Mind", "Eventually"), but also of delivering adrenaline-fuelled bursts ("Spaceship Races") and genuine soul clawing ("I Can't Hear You No More", "No Easy Way Down"), reaffirming her ease in forging instantly catchy choruses, as in the lovely "Sweet Sweetheart" and "To Love", as well as the more famous "Goin' Back", already entrusted to the voice of Dusty Springfield and later covered by the Byrds, Queen, Pretenders and many others besides.

King's performances are also always heartfelt and intense, lit up by a voice that doesn't have enormous range, but knows how to strike straight at the heart with its crystalline, elegant tones. The record, however, turns out to be something of a flop, and Carole once again has to take her life and career in hand, at the dawn of a new decade that seems to be shattering every certainty.

There are abysses of melancholy to cross. So Carole sits back down at the piano and fills her scores with torment and regret. Because it's too late: "It's too late". Too late to tie back together the threads of a finished relationship, too late to recapture that sense of freshness from the early days of love (“It used to be so easy living here with you/ You were light and breezy and I knew just what to do/ Now you look so unhappy, and I feel like a fool”). Words written by young songwriter Toni Stern (by her own account, right after the end of a fling with James Taylor), but which seem to match perfectly with the notes and feelings pouring out of Carole's piano. That music in a minor key, that aching, Tin Pan Alley-style melody and that vocal timbre so clear and sincere - without filters or artifice - combined with soft, jazzy arrangements, always wrapped in a bare, understated package, sharpen the sense of regret and nostalgia. So much so that disenchantment over a love affair reaching its end (“And it’s too late, baby, now it’s too late/ Though we really did try to make it/ Something inside has died and I can’t hide/ And I just can’t fake it”) almost seems to turn into the sense of resignation of an entire generation, the one that had dreamed of truly living the Age of Aquarius and instead suddenly found itself catapulted into the disillusionment of the Seventies, of realignment and the end of hippie utopias.

But while stretching the meaning of "It's Too Late" too far can be misleading, it's not inaccurate to call the song a generational anthem, a manifesto of an era. In its sound, first of all, which set a defining standard for the entire decade of the Seventies (that of the most intimate, melancholy singer-songwriter style, think James Taylor), but also in its words: feminist, according to some, because it's a woman who ends the relationship - even too mature and too honest, according to critic Robert Christgau, who wrote: "If there's an honest song about a breakup, it's 'It's Too Late' - the world (or at least AM radio) isn't ready for it yet". But he would be proven wrong, at least on the second point: released as a single in April 1971, "It's Too Late" shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Adult Contemporary chart, becoming the third best-selling single of the year and winning a Grammy for Best Record of the Year.

"It's Too Late" will be one of the key tracks behind the success of Tapestry (1971), the album with which this shy New York flower child breaks onto the international scene, buoyed by outstanding collaborations with friends Joni Mitchell and James Taylor and by a delicate sensibility, combined with a decidedly utopian spirit in tune with the times. The album goes to number one on the US charts and stays on the charts for over six years. Credit goes to the immortal charm of ballads like "You've Got A Friend", a melancholy anthem to friendship also taken to success by James Taylor, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", the soul-rock classic already made immortal by the voice of Aretha Franklin, and "So Far Away", another powerful, atmospheric slow number steeped in irresistible melancholy.

Giving the album more rhythm, meanwhile, are the tight pop-rock of "I Feel The Earth Move" and the infectious soul of "Way Over Yonder". King proves herself to be not only a top-class songwriter but also a performer, capable of giving her compositions an elegantly jazzy touch.

With Carole King, as with Janis Joplin, we celebrate the sexual revolution, the great dreams of the Seventies, the ideals of the "Woodstock Generation". But everything is softer, gentler, more graceful. Through the unease that seeps out of her songs, the New York singer-songwriter reveals every sign of an unformed, introverted character, one that wouldn't hold up to stardom for very long.

Tapestry will indeed remain the peak of her success. An extraordinary success: twenty million copies sold worldwide, four Grammys - Album of the Year, Song of the Year ("You've Got A Friend"), Best Composition of the Year ("It's Too Late"), Best Female Performer. And her songs would go on to be covered by artists such as Quincy Jones, Rod Stewart, Bee Gees and Manhattan Transfer.

Thanks in part to this record, confessional singer-songwriter music turns into a popular genre, and women in rock finally find a model to follow. But Carole King has always denied having played a "social" role: "Everyone says my songs contributed to women's liberation," she recounts, "but at the time I wasn't really aware of it. In my career I never felt that being a woman was an obstacle or an advantage. I always thought I was either accepted or rejected purely for what I did." Even so, the ballad template coined by the Brooklyn singer-songwriter would remain a constant reference point for subsequent generations of female songwriters.

The Brooklyn singer-songwriter continues to enjoy good popularity with the following Carole King Music (1972), another collection of intimate, heartfelt songs about friendship and love, warmed by her piano and by the characteristic soul touch of her performances. As in "Brother Brother", almost an answer to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", in which King revives that feeling armed with bongos and a voice more persuasive than ever, reeling off lines of aching empathy: “You have always been so good to me/ And though you didn’t always talk to me/ There wasn’t much my lovin’ eyes could not see/ And I don’t believe you need all your misery.” But the Motown spirit also hovers over other tracks, such as "Surely", enriched by a captivating melodic line, the intense "Brighter" and the other soul caress of "Growing Away From Me", seasoned with guitar and celesta phrases.

Taylor also returns, accompanying with his acoustic guitar the phrasing of "Song Of Long Ago", another song about friendship, which Carole builds at the piano and sings with passionate drive, while Curtis Amy offers up a soft sax solo on the waltz "Music". Decent singer-songwriter ballads like "Sweet Season" and "Some Kind Of Wonderful" (a classic Goffin-King number already covered by the Drifters) briefly bring back the atmosphere of its historic predecessor, but what's missing - besides the breathtaking hooks - is also the care in the arrangements and production that had marked that earlier triumph. Still, the work of the musicians surrounding the singer is commendable, from Charles Larkey (bass) to Joel O'Brien (drums) and Danny Kootch (guitar).

The following Rhymes And Reasons (1972) is largely co-written with Toni Stern and brings with it the hit single "Been To Canaan", with its religious overtones ("Been so long. I'm living till then/ Cause I've been to Canaan and I won't rest until I go back again"), as well as the elegant ballad "First Day In August", which boasts another fine lyric full of assorted romantic tenderness (“On the first day in August/ I want to wake up by your side/ After sleeping with you on the last night in July/ In the morning/ We’ll catch the sun rising/ And we’ll chase it from the mountains to the bottom of the sea”).

Overall, though, the record turns out to be a step backward, showing a certain lack of sharpness in the writing. Carole's songs remain evocative, but they have lost all connection with black music and seem for the most part to be faded carbon copies of those from her golden years. What remains, however, is the unmistakable stamp of a voice that has grown ever more refined, gaining in awareness and expressive maturity.

The other full-length effort that follows a year later, Fantasy (1973), also misses the mark. A collection of melodramatic monologues, in which King bares herself, recounting all her hopes and weaknesses, at times even taking on different characters. And the impact - as Rolling Stone would write - seems like that of "an early-Sixties soap opera".

There's no shortage, though, of new lyrics of disarming "humanist" candor (“Everyone comes from one father one mother/ So why do we complicate our lives so much/ By being at war with each other”, she sings in "Being At War With Each Other"), nor of new, delicate female portraits, like that of the pregnant woman in "That's How Things Go Down" and of a housewife grappling with daily routine ("Weekdays"). Besides her usual songwriter's toolkit (piano and guitar first and foremost), Carole tries playing some new musical cards, such as the Latin flavors of "Corazon", framing another story of extraordinary ordinariness: “All I want is a quiet place to live/ Where I can enjoy the fruits of my labor/ Read the paper/ And not have to cry out loud”. The result, however, leaves more than a little doubt.

The jazz turn of Wrap Around Joy (1974) wins over a good chunk of the public, but leaves critics lukewarm, partly because of arrangements that aren't always on target, as in the heartfelt "Jazzman", where the orchestra almost seems to smother the dialogue between Carole's voice and Tom Scott's bass lines.

Even the Fifties-style vocal harmonies of "Wrap Around Joy" seem off-key, in a track that can't quite decide between pop and rhythm'n'blues. Better, if anything, is the single "You're Something New", which nails the most effective refrain of the bunch.

Nor do the following Really Rosie (the soundtrack to a children's TV special) and Thoroughbread - recorded with the help of Crosby and Nash, as well as the usual Taylor, and bolstered by the first collaboration with Goffin since the Sixties ("Only Love Is Real") - manage to reverse course, marking the end of her relationship with Lou Adler's Ode record label.

Having signed to Capitol, for the new album Simple Things the former Natural Woman enlisted the songwriting collaboration of Rick Evers, who also became her third husband. The new partnership yields a few decent ideas, like the energetic "Hard Rock Cafe", about as close to a hit as King managed to come during this period – though it would mark the first time, after the breakthrough of 1971, that she failed to crack the Top Ten. And while the ballads "In The Name Of Love" and "Time Alone" polish up the old winning piano-and-voice formula, other tracks, like the title track, reveal all the limits of a songwriting style that had lost the unaffected brilliance of her golden years.

But it's life, even more than her career, that deals King new wounds. Right after making the new record with him, Welcome Home, she loses her husband Rick Evers, killed by a heroin overdose. A devastating blow for the American singer-songwriter, who alongside Evers had been rediscovering a long-lost sense of peace. A couple of tracks on the album bear witness to this, all things considered, like the pastoral "Morning Sun" and the country-rock stomp of "Main Street Saturday Night". Even so, nothing on the record sounds like the magical anthems of King's early-decade work. And while some tracks are simply toothless compositions ("Sunbird", "Everybody's Got The Spirit"), others verge on outright embarrassment ("Venusian Diamond", "Disco Tech").

Still shaken by her recent loss, King tries to pick herself back up a year later with Touch The Sky (1979). But despite the solid contribution of the backing band led by Jerry Jeff Walker, the Brooklyn singer-songwriter seems utterly lost, unable to find her way back into her own songs. King plays piano on three tracks ("You Still Want Her" by far the most notable), while for the rest of the record she wanders aimlessly through formulaic country-rock, indulging in by-the-numbers guitar twang on "Move Lightly" and drowning in saccharine mush on "Passing Of The Days", completely stripping away the instinctive charm of her approach. The exception is a track like "Time Gone By", a melodic hippie ballad hopelessly out of its time, which at least manages to revive a flicker of intensity.

Tired and disheartened, Carole King retreats to live in Idaho and throws herself into various political causes. The 1980s thus mark the inexorable decline of the star of Tapestry – a decline only partially interrupted by the success of Pearls, an anthology of her old classics written in the Sixties with Goffin, here partly rearranged.

New material, meanwhile, remains stuck in neutral. Take One To One (1982), which at least tries to recapture the feel and immediacy of Tapestry, but ends up bogged down between saccharine choruses (the title track, co-written with Cynthia Weill) and open-hearted confessions ("Little Prince", "Golden Man") that no longer manage to move the listener.

Times change, and so do sounds. Carole thus tries to work a few light streaks of electronics into the bare-bones skeleton of her songs, as on Speeding Time (1983).

Largely programmed and played by her stepson Robbie Kondor, the synthesizers, however, never manage to enhance the songs' appeal – unlike, say, on Joni Mitchell's contemporaneous "Dog Eat Dog" – but instead end up as mere sonic trimmings. The result is songs with no personality ("One Small Voice", "Sacred Heart Of Stone"), or, worse, completely scattershot ones ("Computer Eyes", "Dancing"). So, paradoxically, it's the mostly acoustic moments that come off best, like the slow ballad "So Ready For Love" (though marred by a synthetic harmonica solo), or the closing mini-suite "Alabaster Lady", anchored by Bob Glaub's bass.

After a long six-year hiatus, City Streets (1989) comes out, featuring none other than Eric Clapton as a guest star on a couple of tracks. Slowhand's guitar, however, fails to leave much of a mark on the title track's solo, while for the rest of the record King oscillates between good melodic instincts ("Lovelight") and rather predictable soft-rock numbers ("Down To The Darkness"). So the only real link to the dazzling songwriting of the '70s is the stripped-down "I Can't Stop Thinking About You", which for a moment manages to bring that old thrill back to life.

Four years later comes Colour Of Your Dreams (1993), which at least shows a richer approach to arrangement, from the piano phrases of opener "Lay Down My Life" to the slide guitar solo on "Standing In The Rain", by way of the mandolin on the title track and the near-funky bass of "Do You Feel Love". But the high point is the Tapestry-esque "It's Never Too Late", co-written with Goffin, almost a new "It's Too Late", which takes us right back to that magical 1971 window with the cat.

King tries to reinvent herself as a mature songwriter unashamed to cite masters like Dylan (the country-western of "Friday's Tie-Dye Nightmare") or Springsteen (the epic "Just One Thing"). At times, though, she ends up slipping into tear-jerking power ballads, like "Tears Falling Down On Me" and "Now And Forever" (from the "League Of Their Own" soundtrack), or into country numbers we've heard a thousand times before ("Tie-Dye Nightmare").

Overall, though, it's a record that shows some signs of a comeback, for a woman who can rightly be considered the godmother of all the folk-pop singer-songwriters who would leave a deep mark on the Nineties, from Suzanne Vega to Tori Amos, from Natalie Merchant to Fiona Apple and Sheryl Crow.

After the 1994 compilation Time Gone By, which gathers the best tracks from the three albums she recorded for Capitol (Simple Things, Touch The Sky and Welcome Home), and the live album In Concert from that same year, King takes a long break, one that wouldn't end until the new millennium.

In 2001, in fact, a new album arrives out of nowhere, Love Makes The World, which presents her once again as a traditional songwriter, with a handful of romantic ballads that seem to turn the clock back twenty years. Among the tracks is a second remake of "Oh No, Not My Baby" (originally written by King and Goffin back in the Sixties, and already re-recorded on Pearls) and a song ("The Reason") performed by Celine Dion.

Tracks like "This Time" and "Safe Again" offer a few pleasant pop ideas, while nods to the FM rock of Fleetwood Mac, like "Monday Without You", reveal a rediscovered verve. On the whole, though, the record seems mainly intended as a tribute to a past now long gone.

More years and more songs will come and go, but Carole, now a magnificent septuagenarian, will always remain, in everyone's imagination, that shy girl in the sweater and bell-bottoms, staring out the window with eyes veiled in melancholy.

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