My Amazon Reviews: Carole King "The Essential Carole King"

A Songwriting Tapestry
Out of 5 Stars

A delightful collection that offers both essential music and an educational process in the creation of the Great American Songbook. The first disc of Carole King's own productions is wonderful, showing the evolution of King as a writer and performer, the second disc looks at King's mastery of many forms of songwriting and how much she (and often, husband Gerry Goffin) worked innovation into songform.

The first disc starts with a rarity, King's "It Might As Well rain Until September." It was originally written as a hand-off to Bobby Vee, whose record company didn't want to use it. It became one of Carole's first hits in 1962, and sounds like the Brill Building style. But when she moved to California almost a decade later, she had changed profoundly. "Tapestry" became a watershed moment in pop culture; one of the first albums to spend multiple years on the chart, the first female artist to write and hit with her own compositions, a multiple Grammy award winner.

It established King as a star in her own right, and led to many more hits through the seventies. "Jazzman," "Sweet Seasons," "Only Love Is Real" are all here, but the Capitol records period is left out (including her own hit version of "One Fine Day"). The interesting material is the music made in the current decade, like "The Reason" for Celine Dion, where here Dion returns the favor and sings backup. "Now and Forever" was from the movie "A League of Her Own" and is included here in a new version. It's a reminder of how her talent has stayed strong.

The second disc is the eye opening chronicle of her contributions as a performer. "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was an early hit that was one of the first to include strings to a pop record. "Crying In The Rain" was the last big hit for The Every Brothers, but was unique in its early use of internal rhymes. "The Loco-Motion" was a cash-in on the dance crazes like The Twist, bit the open saxophone blast and chugging drums that dominate the recording were new for their time. In the book "Always Magic In The Air" about the Brill Building years and the songwriters, Goffin, King, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann were on a trip and decided to count the number of songs each had written while listening on the radio. King won because "Cryin' In The Rain" played and she had written that with Howard Greenfield had co written it with Carole instead of her husband Goffin.

You also hear the standards. "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman," "up On The Roof" to name just three. I have a couple of quibbles, like why Billy Joel's cover of "Hey Girl" instead of Freddie Scott's (or even Donnie Osmond, who at least had a hit with it). And at 15 songs, a repeat of two (like A-ha's international #1 version of "Cryin' in The Rain" or James Taylor's "Up On The Roof") would have been nice. I would have been really tickled to hear The Motels' cover of the controversial "He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss." But all together, this is a substantial collection of great music.