Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

     

     

 

A Songwriting Tapestry
4 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.

 

The week went pretty well here until Thursday. Joel and I started out Sunday in NYC with Russ, the Rubber Rebel, holding a booth at Folsom East. The usual suspects were all about, and the day was perfect. For a change, no mad downpours to drive everyone off and make me lunge for plastic, book protecting tarps.

Two days later, we were swaying back and forth to the music of Carole King and James Taylor, who brought their reunion tour to Philadelphia. We had pretty nice seats and the revolving stage made the view perfect. While Taylor's voice remains as silky smooth as every, King's has gained a rasp, but still sounds great. They played for about two and a half hours and the band was legendary. Danny Korthcmar, Lee Sklar and Rusty Kunkle on guitar, bass and drums, respectively. If those names seem at all familiar, it's because just about every Cali-rock album of the seventies and early eighties probably had them on it.

Even though her voice has aged a bit, King was the rocker of the pair. When she belted out "I Feel The Earth Move," she really came off strong. She also had a highlight of the show by singning "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman." James Taylor was almost a jukebox; "You've Got a Friend," "Country Road," "Sweet Baby James," "Fire and Rain"...he hit all the classics. There was one more pair of great duets, when they joined together for "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and the lone unexpected surprise, highlighting King's songwriting legacy by performing "Crying In The Rain."

Little did I know that, as she was performing "I Feel The Earth Move," Tetonic plates somewhere in Canada and the northern USA where preparing to shift the following day. And the day after, a sudden storm would drop me and Joel off the grid for over a day. A storm system that ripped through the area in about 45 minutes, whipping up peak winds of 75 MPH and subsequently knocking out power to about 200,000 people. Including me. From about 3:30 in the afternoon Thursday until about 8:30 Friday night, the elements had us at their mercy. Yes, 30 hours.