I brought Hank Cicalo, my recording engineer from Los Angeles, out to Central Park to record the show as it might possibly become an album,” Adler explains. “Then I had the notion, having done the film Monterey Pop [Adler had produced the groundbreaking 1967 music festival together with John Phillips] I felt that something this big should be filmed. I had no idea what I was going to do with the film at that time, but I felt that something this important should be documented.” Carole King performing in London in 1970. Photograph: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns MC Taylor, Hiss Golden Messenger King, producer Lou Adler and Taylor in Los Angeles during sessions for Tapestry in 1970. Photograph: Jim McCrary/Redferns Stephin Merritt, the Magnetic Fields Holden, Stephen (1973-08-02). "Carole King: Fantasy: Music Review". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2008-05-15. But to me, this is more What's Going On (Carole's Version). And I'm like... Carole, fire your bongo player. Carole King wrote a lot of great soul songs, but she's not a soul singer, and so she seems very out of place with the kind of loose, rolling funk. And (pretty ballad "That's How Things Go Down" aside) the hooks just are not there.

Music fans old enough to remember 1971 can be forgiven if they remember it as the year of Carole King. That was the year, after all, when the “Tapestry” hurricane hit American culture – hit and never really left. 14 million units sold, four Grammy awards, two No. 1 singles (“It’s Too Late” and “So Far Away”), 25 th on Rolling Stone’s list of the all-time greatest albums – you get the point. When its 50 th anniversary came around this year, it was rightly hailed by Esquire as “an enduring reminder of how art can stay engrained in our cultural consciousness.” But you won’t find mention of “Music” in the hit Broadway musical about King’s life, “Beautiful,” nor in American Masters’ biographical film, Carole King: Natural Woman . Hell, you won’t even find it in King’s own memoir, the similarly titled “A Natural Woman,” in which she writes about “Tapestry” and the subsequent tour she played that year, then skips right over “Music” to the next chapter of her life. Tapestry is performed and produced without pretence. You can hear clearly the subtle twists and turns of the chord progressions, the nuanced choices in harmony. Those vocal harmonies at the end of It’s Too Late and the bridge on Beautiful! Is it wrong to pine for songs of such quality? Songs allowed to shine through as they are, unadorned and utterly remarkable.Tapestry was one of the first records my mother and I bonded over. It was so meaningful to sing in unison with my mom to a guttural, honest account performed by a stranger to whom I felt so inexplicably connected: a friend, a sister, a mother, and somebody’s daughter, a low voice and an attitude. From that point onward, I carried her music and spirit with me. Carole King ... ‘My life has been a tapestry.’ Photograph: Jim McCrary/Ode Records / Lou Adler Archive Ken Yerke, Barry Socher, Sheldon Sanov, Haim Shtrum, Kathleen Lenski, Miwako Watanabe, Glenn Dicterow, Polly Sweeney, Robert Lipsett, Gordon Marron - violin Music – Bouncing along in 6/8 time unlike anything on “Tapestry,” the album’s title song provides leaving plenty of room for tenor sax player Curtis Amy to stretch out, demonstrating that King is more than comfortable letting her accompanists do their thing. On February 10, a live album, Home Again, will be released digital ly via Ode Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment. Pre-save the album here .

It’s Going To Take Some Time – Co-written with King’s writing partner on the smash hit “It’s Too Late,” Toni Stern, “It’s Going To Take Some Time” contains not only a lovely instrumental passage featuring the aforementioned celeste, but also a melody that is likeable right off the bat. If you don’t believe it, just ask The Carpenters, who had a Top 20 hit with it when they covered the song in 1972. I’ll be honest that the song of hers I’ve heard the most is Where You Lead as the Gilmore Girls theme – the version she sings with her daughter. How many hours have I spent sitting on the couch with my mom harmonising to that song? It’s a tradition we’ve carried on a few times during quarantine over the phone. Carole’s songs made me want to sing her melodies and her harmonies and I felt closer to her while finding my path as a singer even at that young age. In my 30s, watching her musical on Broadway, I was overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude for her story. It showed the way in which a woman can pursue her own career, have a family and achieve happiness. That is a delicate balance that I strive for in my own life every day. Joan Armatrading Fantasy is the fifth album by American singer-songwriter Carole King, released in 1973. At the time of its release, it only reached number six on the US Billboard 200 album chart, but has remained highly regarded by her fans over the ensuing decades. Presented as a sort of song cycle, the album opens and closes with two versions of the title song and the songs on each side segue directly into one another. When my sisters and I were growing up, Tapestry was a key record in the house. Our mum also loved James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, who played and sang on it, so it was on in the car a lot. Our mum was from Philly on the east coast, so it was always in my mind that Carole was also a Jewish east-coast girl. She’d write these amazing, emotive songs and sing them in an almost optimistic or carefree voice.At its worst, the Carole King sound can potentially verge on becoming elevator or dentist's office music. King in Lou Adler’s office holding the four Grammys she won for Tapestry in 1971. Photograph: Jim McCrary/Redferns When you write a song it’s almost mystical. It feels as if the words just come out and it can be months or even years later you realise: “ That’s what was happening.” I’d love to know who those songs are about. I think female artists are great at just letting it all show. As artists, my sisters and I feel like having Carole always in our lives definitely inspired us. Margo Price

With this album, King moved into more experimental (for her) realms. Writing the entire album herself, without an outside lyricist, she moves away from the introspective songs of Tapestry and its immediate follow-ups to examine the lives of others, in particular of those less fortunate. It’s presented as a concept album of two unbroken suites of songs that all segue together. Moving beyond the spare arrangements of its predecessors, for Fantasy Carole scored brass and string arrangements and experimented with Latin and funk styles. Tapestry is part of the American songbook. I heard those songs even before I knew who she was. I love that book Girls Like Us, a trio of biographies of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and Carole King and the story behind Tapestry. The record before it [1970’s Writer] hadn’t performed that well, so she had it in her head that this one had to be great. She was meditating a lot. She was probably in some mental-spiritual prime, and then when she realised what fame entailed she was like: “No way.” She cared more about her personal life. January 5, 2023 - The brand new feature-length concert documentary “ Home Again: Carole King Live In Central Park,” which presents musical icon Carole King’s triumphant May 26, 1973 homecoming concert on The Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Park before an estimated audience of 100,000, will premiere January 19 at New York’s IFC Film Center via Abramorama. The film will then be released wide on February 9 (also King’s birthday) streaming exclusively on The Coda Collection. Directed by George Scott and produced by Lou Adler and John McDermott, the film presents the complete multi-camera 16mm footage filmed and recorded by Adler in 1973 but never before released. Abramorama will release the film theatrically at New York’s IFC Film Center starting January 19 with a special presentation featuring a Q&A with Lou Adler. Additional theatrical screenings in other US cities as well as international markets will also be announced. The IFC Center, the ultimate entertainment space for New Yorkers seeking out the best in independent film, opened in June 2005, following an extensive renovation of the historic Waverly theater. The film will also be presented as part of a special event at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on January 26 where Adler and other special guests will be featured. King didn’t need the advice. The estimable guitarist Danny Kortchmar, whose work shone on both “Tapestry” and “Music,” says that King knew exactly where she was going in the studio. “Carole really knows what she wants,” he told me in a recent interview. “She’s a very astute producer and arranger.”The radical thing about Tapestry is its refusal to be iconic. The original Shirelles version of Will You Love Me Tomorrow, arguably the best song of the 60s, is so clearly a masterpiece that King’s own version could never compete with it. Instead, she sings it slowly and plaintively, with no flattering reverb, making the answer to the title, heartbreakingly, “Probably not”. Ouch! Lucy Dacus

In spite of everything already mentioned, the rest of Carole King's albums hold up well-enough on their own and are probably very overdue for a critical reappraisal. None of us singer-songwriters were known for our voices, and we had to get past that. I had to get past the fact that I wasn’t going to sound like Linda Ronstadt or Joni Mitchell or Carole King, but from Carole I learned that you can accept your own voice and work within your limitations, which was liberating. Danielle Haim

Contributors

I would have just turned 18 when Tapestry came out, when I was really being influenced by singers and songwriters. Carole King was an inspiration. She was a woman, and she wrote amazing songs – so you’d learn by listening to It’s Too Late or whatever, over and over. She set the stage for other singer-songwriters who came along after her, because there wasn’t a market yet and the industry didn’t know what to do with us. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrateded.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p.166/167. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.