FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Carole King - Tapestry
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THIS Vinyl Corner is special…
IN THIS PHOTO: Carole King poses with the four GRAMMYs she won for Tapestry, March 1971/PHOTO CREDIT: Jim McCrary/Redferns
as I am revisiting a very iconic and loved album. Also, Carole King’s Tapestry turns fifty on 10th February, so I was eager to mark such an important occasion. If you do not own this album on vinyl, then I would urge people to buy it. I wonder why the album was not remastered and re-released to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary because, at the moment, one cannot pick up a copy that readily and inexpensively. That said, Tapestry is such a fantastic album that shelling out a little bit more for the vinyl is well worth the investment! I will bring in a couple of reviews for Tapestry soon, but, first, it is worth exploring this amazing album. Tapestry is the second studio album by King, released on Ode Records and produced by Lou Adler. It is the eighty-first best-selling album of all time with over ten million copies sold worldwide. It has been certified Diamond by the RIAA and it received four Grammy Awards in 1972, including Album of the Year. Tapestry was one of those albums that I grew up listening to. Although I love the rarer cuts on that album, I think It’s Too Late is my favourite; it may be one of my favourite songs ever. I first heard that song when I was in primary school, and I was moved and struck by it. I Feel the Earth Move, Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman are the other notable and standout tracks on the album.
If you dig deeper, one will find so many treasures and memorable tracks. Home Again, Way Over Yonder, and You’ve Got a Friend are other remarkable tracks. The title track is phenomenal, and, in fact, there is not a weak or slight moment across the album. Fifty years after its release and I feel Tapestry is inspiring songwriters - and will continue to do so for years to come. Whilst I think Carole King is a singular talent, I can hear elements of her in other artists. I want to bring in a review from AllMusic, who had this to say when they assessed the 1971-released Tapestry:
“Carole King brought the fledgling singer/songwriter phenomenon to the masses with Tapestry, one of the most successful albums in pop music history. A remarkably expressive and intimate record, it's a work of consummate craftsmanship. Always a superior pop composer, King reaches even greater heights as a performer; new songs like the hits "It's Too Late" and "I Feel the Earth Move" rank solidly with past glories, while songs like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" take on added resonance when delivered in her own warm, compelling voice. With its reliance on pianos and gentle drumming, Tapestry is a light and airy work on its surface, occasionally skirting the boundaries of jazz, but it's also an intensely emotional record, the songs confessional and direct; in its time it connected with listeners like few records before it, and it remains an illuminating experience decades later”.
There are a lot of people who have not heard Tapestry or are unaware of the music of Carole King. Although she wrote Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, and Smackwater Jack alongside Gerry Goffin, and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman with Goffin and Jerry Wexler, I feel it is King’s solo contributions that hit hardest – although some may disagree. Carole King turns seventy-nine on 9th November, so there will be this two-day celebration: first for the iconic songwriter, then for a classic album that turns fifty. Before wrapping up, I want to source heavily from a Pitchfork review of Tapestry. It goes into real depth and provides some great information:
“Tapestry was King’s second album as a bandleader, primary songwriter, unvarnished singer, and tentative recording artist—an American master of melody whose introspection became a phenomenon. At 29, she had been in the music industry for over a decade, outlasting the sea change away from bubblegum music and towards the singer-songwriter. She was skeptical of stardom. (“I didn’t think of myself as a singer,” King has said, and having written for Aretha, who could blame her?) She had also divorced her lyricist. Gathering her daughters, Louise and Sherry, and her cat, Telemachus, King moved cross-country to the Hollywood Hills, where she undertook the time-honored pop-music tradition of self-reinvention by way of self-discovery. In time, she grew spiritual, becoming a follower of the artistically beloved Swami Satchidananda. Crucially, she finally began to write her own lyrics in earnest, penning more than half the songs, and all of the peaks, of Tapestry alone.
King’s lyrics are a testament to the potential of the simplest phrases when heightened by an uncluttered arrangement and an unfettered truth, the definition of classic. “You’re beautiful,” “you’ve got a friend,” “you’re so far away”—her words are conversational, economic, and nearly telepathic, as if reading our collective mind. In songs that mix girl-group longing, Broadway balladeering, blues, soul, and wonder, Tapestry used the room itself as an instrument. 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. The result was precise but not overly manicured. Owing to her newfound spirituality, there is a sweet serenity to Tapestry. Here was a ’50s rock’n’roller from Brooklyn having journeyed through the ’60s to become a ’70s lady of the Canyon, making music that seemed to elude time completely.
The songs of Tapestry are like companions for navigating the doubts and disappointments of everyday life with dignity. Having composed hundreds of singles for others, King knew what they needed: raw feeling, careful phrasings, a little sparkle. She lets her voice break to show that it’s alive. The soulful “It’s Too Late”—co-written with Toni Stern, a then-unknown lyricist who King called “a quintessential California girl”—feels like a grown-up girl-group anthem, wherein the best part of breaking up is, it turns out, clarity. The gospel-tinged backing vocals of “Way Over Yonder,” sung by Merry Clayton, charge its calm with resilience, dreaming of “true peace of mind” and “a garden of wisdom.” By 1971, King was not only practicing yoga but teaching it at the Integral Yoga Institute, and an attendant sense of collectedness carries Tapestry. The Broadway-ready “Beautiful,” which came to King while riding the subway, is a loving-kindness meditation banged out to a Gershwin-like orchestra of piano chords: an appeal to the world to choose a positive outlook, to put forth what you’d like to receive.
Though barely promoted by King herself, Tapestry spent 15 weeks as the No. 1 album in the U.S. upon its release, and stayed on the charts for five years. King won four Grammys for Tapestry in 1972, more than anyone had ever received at once, and it was the first time that the New York award ceremony was broadcast live on television. But King didn’t attend to collect the awards herself. She chose to remain in California with her newborn third child, Molly, instead.
It’s telling: There’s an unmistakable maternal energy to Tapestry. Throughout King’s career, she has recalled moments when her responsibilities merged, in which she’d have her baby in the playpen at the studio or be breastfeeding in between takes. Toni Stern has said that, while writing for Tapestry, King would be “playing the bass with her left hand and diapering a baby with her right.” King herself said that having kids kept her “grounded in reality,” which is audible in every loosely calibrated note of Tapestry. Her next artistic achievement was a collection of children’s music, 1975’s Really Rosie, in collaboration with author Maurice Sendak. A reworking of “Where You Lead”—rewritten, King has said, to sound less submissive—became the theme song to the mother-daughter sitcom “Gilmore Girls,” sung by King and her daughter Louise.
But there was nothing light about a woman who came of age in the ’50s controlling her destiny, constructing and reconstructing her existence at will, choosing a life of both home and adventure, of heart and mind, and narrating her multitudes, the tapestry of her experience, with popular song. If it feels light, that is a feat; it feels comforting, that is a gift. For all the teen-dreaming of those early Goffin-King tunes, there’s little fantasy on Tapestry: It’s real life”.
Ahead of its fiftieth anniversary on Wednesday, I want to encourage people to go and buy one of the greatest albums that has ever been released. Although Carole King may not have released an album as affecting and brilliant as Tapestry after 1971, I think that people should define her by the one album, as she has released some terrific work through the years. There are some titanic albums turning fifty this year – including Joni Mitchell’s Blue -, but I wanted to celebrate one of my all-time favourite albums. It is such a beautiful and timeless release and, whilst some feel the lyrics are a bit light, I feel that does disservice to Tapestry. Maybe the album does not make the earth move under my feet, but it comes…
PLENTY damn close!