Tapestry (1971) - Carole King

The 1960s were a turbulent time in the world of music, which was turned upside down by a new wave of groups, led by the ever iconic Beatles, that were pioneers, namely because they wrote their own material and did not rely on outside songwriters. By the end of the decade, the need for staff songwriters, while not completely dead, was severely on the wane with the cookie cutter pop groups fading away for material penned by the artists themselves. One of the casualties of this grand shift in the musical world was the wonderful institution of The Brill Building, a place where some of the greatest songwriters would pen classic after classic song and then sell them to artists. Writers like Neil Diamond, Leiber and Stoller, Burt Bacharach and Hal David and Phil Spector were all on staff there, but all of them paled in comparison to the writing team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, the architects behind countless classics sung by The Shirelles, The Drifters, Aretha Franklin and so many more. Yet, sadly, as that type of work died out, most of those writers’ heydays were over, except one clever one, Miss Carole King. King split from ex-husband and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin in 1970, and went out to California to join the burgeoning singer-songwriter scene alongside her friends Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. It took a while for her friends to coax Carole into performing her songs herself, because King didn’t fancy herself a singer, even though she’d been cutting demos for other artists over a decade. She did end up releasing an unsure debut album, Writer (1970), which made little waves, but it was on her blockbuster second album where he came into her own as a confessional performer, helping to bring the entire LA singer-songwriter scene to great prominence in the mainstream. She charted a #1 single and a massive selling album, and becoming one of the most successful female singer-songwriters of the decade, earning the first Grammy for song of the year to ever go to a female writer. While this album was trailblazing in terms of both genre and visibility for female artists, it’s greatest quality is arguably the sheer beauty of each individual song and the way they all come together to create a plush, warm, full album experience that has been a favorite of every generation since its release. It has endured for over fifty years as a beloved landmark of singer-songwriter music. Carole broke the mold, and created a new one with this widely adored beauty. The album is like a warm hug with every listen, whether it be your first or hundredth, it never loses its utter charm and lovingly crafted aura. No other album feels more like a friend’s embrace than this one.

The record opens with what could be considered Carole’s boldest composition, and the furthest removed from the gentle acoustic guitar driven folk of her debut record, the rollicking piano-rock of “I Feel the Earth Move”. The song is a brilliant choice of opener (sequencing, in terms of crafting the album’s emotional arc, is a particular strength of this record) announcing Carole’s newfound confidence and skill as a performer to the world. On this album, King’s producer Lou Adler pushed her to step away from the guitar driven sound of her previous record and base her compositions around the piano, which was her instrument of choice, and with Carole joining the band throughout this record, the sense of electricity from a musical standpoint is clear. The record opens with a pounding piano riff that stomps with the vigor and power of an Elton John or Billy Joel song, setting the standard for the piano based pop-rock that would come to dominate the mid to late 70s. The entire song is drenched in brilliant musical choices from the striking stacked harmonies of the chorus to the song’s delightfully jazzy instrumental break putting King’s tuneful piano fills in contrast with Danny Kortchmar’s guitar licks. The song is a melodic marvel as well, sporting one of her best vocal melodies while King delivers what could be seen as the performance of her career, truly belting it out in the song’s final minute, delivering vocal riffs worthy of the soul singers she used to write for. The song is a shot of energy that no one would expect coming from a piano balladeer, but with this song King crafts an upbeat pop gem, with a chorus to die for, with its descending melodies and rhythmic bent. The song opens the album showing King at her most confident as a performer. If the last album showed us a woman unsure if she could perform as well as she writes, here she comes across as someone in her comfort zone, delivering charismatic and soulful performances with the temperament of a seasoned star.

The album then pivots to its first of many emotional cruxes, and what I feel is the most moving piece on the record, the bittersweet piano ballad “So Far Away”. King delivers a measured, deeply tragic vocal performance, her voice quavering with emotion and frailty, which provides a beautiful contrast to the opening number. The backing track is a gorgeous blend of lilting piano chords, softly brushed drums, a jazzy bass line and gently strummed acoustic guitar from none other than James Taylor. King’s piano arpeggios embellish the song, but never take precedence over her breathtaking vocal performance, which while not technically perfect, is some of the most emotional resonant vocal work I’ve come across. The song is a lament, a resigned piece about King feeling profoundly alone, living her life away from her lover, bemoaning “doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore”, a stirring lyrical conceit to this day. The song is beautifully simple in a way that is difficult to describe, swirling backing harmonies, descending bass scales, and a sweet flute coda all are just touches on what is an immaculately written song. The tune is a testament to King’s unmatched skill at crafting ballads that are catchy and stick in the brain while being supremely substantive, melodically and emotionally. A heartbreaker, and one of her best overall showcases as a performer and writer.

The album’s perfect opening trio comes to a close with the album’s most iconic and successful track, the immaculate jazzy pop perfection of “It’s Too Late”, which is four minutes of some of the cleverest pop writing imaginable, opening with a plush soft-rock groove with its slinky guitar figure from Kortchmar, thrumming active bass work from Charles Larkey and a crisp performance from Russ Kunkel on drums. The song is instrumentally the best piece on the record, with the arrangement elevating the song to brilliant levels, it is a fully fleshed out piece in a musical sense, with King being able to luxuriate in the groove in a way many of the other tracks don’t permit. Over this song she turns in another excellent vocal performance, turning in more soulful inflections than ever before, singing the song’s sharp, clever and emotionally attuned lyric about a relationship on the verge of falling apart because neither partner truly wants to put in the effort to fix it anymore. It is a song of passion resigned, but Carole gives it a performance that makes you hang on every single word. The song even features a brilliant jazzy guitar solo in the middle of the song followed by a killer saxophone break by Curtis Amy, adding to the plush jazz feel of the track, almost like proto-Steely Dan, who would debut the next year. The song’s use of backing harmonies is another stellar touch in the arrangement that helps bring it to life, with King providing all her own harmonies and countermelodies, building out the number’s sonic palette even further. It is four blissful minutes of pop, and the highest achievement of Adler’s production on the record. Over just three songs, King has turned in a trio of radically different types of songs and she delivers them all with grace and soul. An opening trio better than that is hard to find.

King continues with “Home Again”, possibly the only weak moment of the album, but its weakness is probably exacerbated by having to follow those three masterpieces, as well as its significant similarity “So Far Away” both in its lilting vocal melody and piano rhythm. The song almost feels like a reprise, but instead of a heartbreaking lament, it provides a more hopeful counterpoint, where she is attempting to make it home to meet with her beloved. The songs are two sides of the same coin, and at that they succeed in giving the album’s A side a feel of a continuous narrative. Next comes the upbeat anthem of self-love that is “Beautiful”, a song that feels like Carole’s theme song for the making of this record. She poetically chides the song’s subject that they have to be confident in who they are in order to be seen as beautiful by others, with King turning in a performance as bold and inspirational as her self-empowering lyrics. She belts it out over the martial strut of the piano which drifts from lilting verses to the more emphatically performed chorus, creating a brilliant contrast that makes the chorus pop even more than it would have otherwise. The subtle hints of electric piano give the song its own unique sonic identity from the rest of the record, but it stills feels right at home here, namely due to Carole’s sense of melody making all these tracks feel unique but of a set. When she belts out the chorus one final time, it is spine tingling in its power and soul. The side closes with “Way Over Yonder”, one of the simplest yet most ambitious songs on here, being a type of secular gospel tune that would be perfect for Aretha Franklin, but here King delivers one of her boldest and brassiest performances here, backed up by frequent Rolling Stones collaborator Merry Clayton on backing harmonies giving it an even more soulful punch. The song feels like it would fit right in on a southern soul record with its warm guitar licks and churchy piano work, but it all hinges on King’s vocal and she knocks it out of the park, with some of her most confident work. The harmonies with Clayton make the song soar on those chorus hooks. The tune is a five minute vocal workout on one of King’s simplest but most stirring melodies and it relies almost exclusively on the duo’s vocal chemistry and both performers deliver some of their best work. This is a type of song that King would never have even thought of attempting on her first record, but here it is a minor highlight. It shows how much Carole had come in barely a year’s time.

The record’s second side opens with the album’s best written song, the elegant piano ballad “You’ve Got a Friend”, much more famous for James Taylor’s #1 hit cover of the song (the song was allegedly written as a response song to Taylor’s own “Fire and Rain”, as King’s way of showing how much she cared for him), but King’s original performance rivals his. The duo’s instrumental chemistry is evident from the way Taylor’s acoustic guitar work here effortlessly combines with Carole’s own melodically wonderful work on the piano to craft a warm bed of sound over which she delivers the simple but profoundly moving lyrics about friendship weathering any circumstance. It is King’s platonic equivalent of the Motown classic “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, and while it isn’t a duet, it could be. The piece is a five minute meditation on the importance of friendship that has never been rivaled in song. Adler’s arrangement skills shine through on this number as well, with the tasteful inclusion of strings, that build and embellish only when the song calls for it, letting Taylor and King’s instruments dominate the mix for the first half, while the strings linger in the background, never overwhelming Carole and her piano. The song is an absolute triumph of composition, sporting some of her most memorable melodies and the best lyric she’s ever penned. The lyrics themselves are so central, that it is easy to miss how brilliant the song is melodically, with the “winter, spring, summer or fall” hook being one of her catchiest. Overall, Carole has never come close again to crafting a song of this magnitude, and will remain the crown jewel of her catalog. A masterpiece among masterpieces.

The record continues with “Where You Lead” (also known as the Gilmore Girls theme song), an upbeat love song and her second collaboration with Toni Stern (who also penned the lyrics for “It’s Too Late”), with the joyous piano fills bouncing off the grooving rhythm section to craft one of the album’s catchiest purely pop moments. The ebullient chorus is drenched in stacks of harmonies and some of her most playful backing vocal work, giving it an almost doo-wop flavor, harkening back to her early work with The Drifters. The song is one of the album’s most genuine love songs, with King pledging her love to her partner with her saying she would go anywhere for him. While it is a love song, it feels like it could just be about a friend yet again, making it a song of commitment for any close relationship, another way that this album truly feels appropriate for any occasion, with a song for every emotion and experience, which is part of the reason why it has endured and become such a universal piece of work. While King wrote every song on this record, on the second side she dives into her back catalog for a few older tunes written with her ex-husband Gerry Goffin, with her cover of The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” being a bold reclamation of her legacy. This is made even more beautiful due to the three part harmonies that made the original track soar on the chorus being sung by King and her two legendary compatriots, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, who lend their unique tones to the song, and when all their voices come together it is truly magical. The song is the album’s most purely beautiful tune, with Taylor’s acoustic guitar driving the song, weaving in and out of King’s piano. The song’s bridge with all three providing melodies and countermelodies being one of the most musically satisfying passages of the record, with Taylor and Mitchell answering every one of Carole’s pointed lyrical questions before the final verse with their call and response bridge. The song may not sound as polished as the original, but the way Carole performs it, with the voice of a woman haunted by a loss of love makes it the definitive take. Carole delivers the album’s second piano rock moment with the bluesy story song “Smackwater Jack”, a bouncy guitar and bass driven cut with some fantastic organ work that gives it a 60s blues rock flavor. Here, King tells the tale of the titular outlaw who engages in frightening gun violence, but King sings it with a bluesy grit that is startling in the best way. The song’s stop start chorus lick gives it a sense of pop smarts that shows that Carole always knew how to make a song stick in the brain. It almost feels out of place on the album, but it gives the record a sense of variety, with Carole truly showing us every trick she has up her sleeve. The album’s penultimate track is its title song, a moment that is drenched in watery sounding bass tone and electric piano, making it sound the most dated musically on the record, and lyrically it doesn’t fit the record’s emotional bent, being an almost sung fairy tale. King’s use of period language is clever, but it lacks the immediacy of the rest of the material. It is a pretty song, but it feels more out of place than the piano rock of the previous track even though it is a ballad. It is the weak point of the record, but if a song this well made is the low light it speaks to the quality of the rest of the record.

The album closes with King’s second and final reclamation of a song she gave to another, with it arguably being her greatest song she ever gave away. She ends the album by delivering a truly breathtaking version of Aretha Franklin’s classic power ballad “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”. While Carole’s vocals lack the deep soul, power and fireworks that made Franklin’s canonical version soar, King sings it in a different, but equally moving way, not going for the big money notes but instead delivering it as a soulful, but grounded piano ballad. Carole’s belt is still mighty strong here, but her performance is more measured than “Way Over Yonder”s soul, here she sings it like Carole instead of like Aretha, which is what makes this the second best version of the song. Every other cover of the song features the singer trying to emulate Aretha, which is truly impossible, but Carole sings the song as it was originally sung, by herself. It in fact feels like a demo, unlike anything else here, but it works wonders. It is akin to getting a glimpse inside of Carole’s own process. It doesn’t sound unfinished at all, it sounds like its own beautiful song, that would later get new life. It is identical in quality and meaning to Prince’s demo of “Nothing Compares 2 U” in the way that it feels like it was never meant to be heard, but you never want to stop listening either. Either of those could have been the original and no one would bat an eyelash, but knowing that it wasn’t meant for them gives listening to them a feeling of butterflies, like it is special every time.

This entire album is the epitome of that feeling, where each song feels profoundly intimate and well loved in a way that no other record really can, not even in her own catalog. Here Carole was able to tap into something universal and beautiful that is rarely captured on tape, it is a wonderful image of a performer finding her unique voice. Carole had always and would continue to be one of the greatest songwriters of her generation, but on this album Carole became a consummate performer as well. Not a perfect showman, but someone who could sing her songs with grace, confidence and charm. She delivers performances here that she would never equal again for the rest of her career. Carole King is the perfect example of the quintessential singer-songwriter. She took the long road to get there, but there’s no album that better represents all the joy and wonder of the genre better than this one. The album length equivalent of catching up with a close friend. No matter how long or short it’s been since your last listen, give it a spin, it’ll pick you up like little else. A warm aural embrace.