Louis Rosen: 1970-The Singer-Songwriter Comes of Age: Carole King
With tonight’s class, Louis Rosen continues his summer series on pivotal writer/performers of an era when popular music turned a corner. “I’m going to introduce you to some of the best albums and to backgrounds of the artists. We begin with Carole King who had been an important figure in music since 1959, but experienced a most unexpected breakthrough in 1971.”
A 1971 video clip of King performing opens this evening’s session. She sings and plays her own music/lyrics with “I Feel the Earth Move.” Piano is emphatic. Shoulders tilt, eyes close. Her hair is ironed, her granny dress shapeless. One of tonight’s attendees later identifies the persona as “Blue-eyed Soul.” Rosen’s definition: “White artists in the mid-sixties who effectively assimilated African-American soul and gospel influences. Some of Laura Nyro’s work, The Rascals, some Carole King, The Righteous Brothers…”
Carole Klein met Gerry Goffin at Queens College. He was a chemistry major who yearned to write Broadway musicals; she, a rock n’roller who wanted to write songs. “They started to collaborate leaning her way and became part of a stable at Aldon Publishing (Don Kirschner and Al Nevins) that included Cynthia Weill/Barry Mann and Neil Sedaka/Howard Greenfield. The couple’s breakthrough hit “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” (for The Shirelles) reflected personal experience – she was a 17 year-old pregnant secretary, he was 20 and working at a chemical plant. ‘You don’t have to do this anymore,’ Kirschner told them.”
“King’s music and Goffin’s lyrics were part of the sound track of the ‘60s. They had a knack for borrowing just a hint of a group’s successful feel. When I first heard the introduction to “One Fine Day” by The Chiffons, I knew it was them because it suggested just enough of “He’s So Fine” to make the connection..” In 1963 John Lennon was quoted as saying that he wanted Paul McCartney and himself to become ‘the Goffin-King of England.’ (Adam Bernstein, Washington Post)
Versions Rosen has chosen to play are not the originals, but King’s later performance. We watch and listen to an infectiously ebullient 1980 clip of “One Fine Day.” By now the artist’s hair is natural and curly, though her granny dress and downcast eyes remain signature. On screen, Rosen bobs along. “It’s still one of my favorite songs…King would do demos that were so fleshed out, producers would literally copy them for their artists. She had a sense of arrangement and notated parts when needed. ”
On “Take Good Care of My Baby,” a hit for Bobby Vee, it’s possible to hear counter melody and layered piano parts. Some of her demos were so polished, they put them out as recordings. “Locomotion,” Everybody’s doing a brand-new dance, now/ (Come on baby, do the Loco-motion) ended up being successful for her babysitter Little Eva. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” (not written by the couple) did well for the clean-cut, bow-tied Righteous Brothers. King/Goffin followed up with “Just Once in My Life,” It echoes the earlier sound without repeating it. Rosen listens intently, chin in hand.
“She added vocal harmonies into the demo, showing what the second Righteous brother should sing,” he observes. That same year, Goffin was standing on a fire escape overlooking the Winter Garden Theatre when he came up with the iconic “Up On the Roof,” a success for The Drifters.
“King thought of herself as a song writer not a performer. She was at the top of her field writing for others. It was like an assembly line: writers to publishers, to producers, to talent – everyone had his role. The Beatles and Dylan changed all that. They authored, arranged, and performed their own material. Lyricists woke to the fact that there was more than love to write about, that seriousness and poetry could be successful. By the mid-1960s the collaborators represented the old guard, even though she was 22 at the time.”
At this point, Goffin started to do a lot of LSD and mescaline. He eventually had a psychotic break and was hospitalized for manic depression. By all reports, the couple had started to drift apart beforehand. A divorce ensued. They’d been married 10 years and had two daughters. (After separating from King, Goffin released the 1973 solo album It Ain’t Exactly Entertainment. It wasn’t successful. He began to write with others.)
King packed her daughters and moved to LA to start fresh. Her timing ran parallel to the music business itself which had shifted bases. She set up house on Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon, attended yoga class, stopped eating red meat and relaxed. Friends and peers thought of the nurturing, unpretentious woman as an earth mother. When denizens of the Canyon had bad drug trips, they came to King. “She was Hamish, a Yiddish colloquial for homey, a good person who did the right thing,” Rosen says affectionately.
Here she re-met guitarist Danny Korchmar and bassist Charles Larkey formerly of the popular New Jersey group, The Myddle Class. They formed a new band – The City which would play on her first album. Also new in her life were lyricist Toni Stern, with whom she would collaborate on “It’s Too Late” and “Where You Lead.” Goffin wanted his family back. King said, no, but agreed to resume collaboration. In 1970, her solo album Writer would contain mostly their songs. Shut in a studio, she didn’t have to face stage fright.
Taylor played acoustic guitar and provided back-up vocals on the recording. She, in turn, played on his Sweet Baby James album and went on tour with him playing keyboard. (Their harmonies and sensibility are similar.) Because King wouldn’t front a band live to publicize it, the album flopped. During time on the road with Taylor, she was merely a member of the band. Then he began to introduce and feature her. Slowly King acquired performance chops. She married Larkey who encouraged her to write her own lyrics.
Singer/songwriter Laura Nyro came on the scene with her first (soul/gospel influenced) album inspiring Joni Mitchell to compose on the piano and King to go solo. Neither wrote mainstream material, both crafted more personal lyrics. King allowed Taylor to record “You’ve Got a Friend” before she did. It was his only #1 hit. The song appeared on her next album Tapestry, as did Toni Stern’s contributions, “Will You still Love Me Tomorrow?” and “Natural Woman,” the latter commissioned for Aretha Franklin. Much of the compilation was nailed in the first session. Overdubs and all, it took two weeks to record.
The album reminded people of King’s longevity but also brought her into the present. Producer Lou Adler was Mr. Cool, “Man, it’s gonna be huge,” he’d respond to insecure queries. Its first reviews were lukewarm, but when John Landau wrote pages of praise in Rolling Stone, the ‘senior rock crowd’ took notice. Tapestry held the No.1 spot for 15 consecutive weeks, garnered four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and remained on the charts for nearly six years. Cynthia Weill said, “Carole spoke from her heart and happened to be in tune with the mass psyche.”
We then listen to side one of Tapestry. Rosen suggests we pay attention to what he calls “the Carole King chord.” He moves to the piano to demonstrate. “The 4th chord is F, the 5th G. If you play an F chord with a G at the bottom…he demonstrates- this is her signature.” “I Feel the Earth Move” she sings. “Lest we think this is only a piece of nostalgia, it’s one of my 23 year-old son’s favorite grooves,” the host comments.
“Far Away”- written for her daughter Louise is next. (Louise would eventually enter the business.) The arrangement is deftly spare. Drummer Russ Kunkel was 21 years-old and had just arrived in LA. His soft tom-toms became part of the sound of the era. “Home Again” is a small, lovely song often overshadowed by the others. “Beautiful” and “Way Over Yonder” reveal gospel roots. “There’s not a bad or even an average song among them and that’s just side one,” Rosen opines.
The album hit a nerve of cultural exhaustion that wouldn’t be fully felt till the mid 1970s when the results of violence and questioning institutions could be seen and heard. “When King sings about love, you feel it. There was comfort in these songs. They came across as authentic – a word I hate, but it’s true here. There’s nothing fake about her spirit.” One insightful attendee notes that “when you’re in your 20s, you’re not looking at artistry, it’s how the song affects you. It’s different now.”
“Joni Mitchell at the time was playing up youthful girlishness to counterbalance sharp perception,with Carole King, there’s no dichotomy.”
Opening photo courtesy of Louis Rosen
This is the Series:
THE SINGER-SONGWRITER – 1971 and 1972
Louis Rosen 11 sessions
The singer-songwriter as solo artist comes of age in 1970 and continues to flourish until the mid-1970’s, creating songs and albums that will influence generations of songwriters to come. This semester we take an in-depth look at the work of key artists and albums of this genre from the years 1971 and 1972, including Carole King’s Tapestry and Music, Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book, Paul Simon’s eponymous first solo album, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Randy Newman’s Sail Away, John Lennon’s Imagine, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly, Paul McCartney’s Ram, James Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon and One Man Dog, Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love and Hate, Jackson Browne’s Saturate Before Using and more. Our goal: to make the familiar seem fresh, and work that is less known to you familiar, all in context of the specific artist’s body of work and against the backdrop of the era’s continuing social and political unrest.
https://www.92y.org/class/the-singer-songwriter-1971-and-1972
Special Sunday Session can be purchased individually COURT AND SPARK – JONI MITCHELL and ART IN THE MARKETPLACE
Sunday, October 11, 2020, 1:30 – 3:20 Info www.92y.org
