This is it – today, exactly 50 years ago, on February 10, 1971, one of greatest records in pop history was released: Tapestry by Carole King. As such, we’ve come to the final part of my series to celebrate this iconic record. Perhaps some readers will breathe a sigh of relief, after having seen Carole King-related posts from me for the past nine days in a row! 🙂
To quickly recap, during the previous nine parts, I’ve covered all of side A – I Feel the Earth Move, So Far Away, It’s Too Late, Home Again, Beautiful and Way Over Yonder – and most of the B-side, i.e., You’ve Got a Friend, Where You Lead, Will You Love Me Tomorrow and Smackwater Jack. This leaves two tracks: The album’s title song and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.
I’ll leave it up to Carole to comment on the title track: “It is typical of the magic that seems to surround that album, a magic for which I feel no personal responsibility, but just sort of happened, that I had started a needlepoint tapestry a few months before we did the album, and I happened to write a song called ‘Tapestry,’ not even connecting the two up in my mind,“ she explained during a recorded 1972 conversation with producer Lou Adler, as quoted by Songfacts. “I was just thinking about some other kind of tapestry, the kind that hangs and is all woven, or something, and I wrote that song. And, you being the sharp fellow you are, (giggles), put the two together and came up with an excellent title, a whole concept for the album.”
(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman is a tune Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote together with input from Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler. It was first recorded and released by the amazing Aretha Franklin in 1967. One of Franklin’s signature songs, it peaked at no. 8 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100.
Apparently, the tune was inspired by a chance encounter between Gerry Goffin and Jerry Wexler. Songfacts again quotes Lou Adler: “Last year (2007) I spoke to Jerry Wexler at his home in Florida, and he told me the story that Gerry was coming out of a building in New York, (Goffin now remembers it as an Oyster House), and Jerry Wexler is passing in a car, and yells out, ‘Why don’t you write a song called ‘Natural Woman’?’ They felt the title was so distinct and so important to the song that they gave him a piece of it.” Certainly a nice way to earn a credit!
(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman is yet another track from Tapestry that never became a single. I guess in this case, it’s understandable – after all, who could possible trump the Queen of Soul. Here’s Aretha Franklin’s incredible cover.
According to this Los Angeles Times story, Tapestry was recorded in just three weeks. Carole and her studio musicians worked pretty quickly, recording two to three tracks per day. Adler noted the album’s studio budget was only $22,000.
Tapestry is one of the most successful albums in pop history. It topped the Billboard 200 for 15 consecutive weeks and to this day holds the record for most consecutive weeks at number one by a female solo artist. Altogether, Tapestry was listed on this chart for 318 weeks between 1971 and 2011, including 302 weeks consecutively from April 10, 1971 to January 15, 1977. It took until 2017, until English songwriter and vocalist Adele beat that record with her album 21.
Tapestry has been certified 13x Multi-Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), as of February 5, 2021, meaning it has reached at least 13 million sold copies. The album won four Grammy Awards in 1972, including the particularly prestigious Album of the Year. In Rolling Stone’s most recent 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Tapestry was ranked at no. 25.
(Jim McCrary/Ode Records/Lou Adler Archives)
The above Los Angeles Times article also noted Carole was largely indifferent about the popularity Tapestry had brought her. While she went on to release 15 additional studio albums, she didn’t tour behind her records or do much else to promote her music.
One exception happened in 2010 when Carole teamed up with James Taylor for an international tour – that’s the one I missed, for which I could still kill myself! “It worked extremely well,” Taylor told the L.A. Times. “Then at the end of it, when everybody’s saying, ‘Keep the big ball rolling,’ Carole says, ‘No, let’s quit while we’re still ahead.’ And she walked away.”
On March 4, 2004, Tapestry was among 50 recordings that were added for 2013 to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Recordings added to this registry are selected to be preserved in the Library of Congress, since they are considered to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.” Some of the other additions for 2013 included Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles), At Folsom Prison (Johnny Cash), What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye) and Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen).
Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; Los Angeles Times; RIAA website; Library of Congress website; YouTube
Christian's Music Musings 
I saw Carole and James on their 2010 Troubadour Tour. It was a marvelous show.
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I can only imagine, and I’m jealous! Still don’t quite understand how I missed that!
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That was the first time I’ve listened to You Make Me Feel… by Carole in a long long time. She put her touch on it and it is great…Aretha just made it a standard…that lady could put soul into any song she touched.
Great series Christian.
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I dig Carole’s heartfelt version, but there
was just no way she could ever match Aretha Franklin, a true vocal powerhouse.
As much as I love Carole, I acknowledge she’s a great songwriter first and foremost and a vocalist second. Objectively speaking, her voice works well for her songs but isn’t outstanding. I still like it!😀
One thing I can highly recommend (if you haven’t done it already) is to listen to “Tapestry” via headphones. There’s lots of great musical stuff going on in the background, including beautiful melodic bass-playing by Charles Larkey.
Other than that he was part of the local Laurel Canyon music scene, I don’t know anything about him. All the other musicians on the album were from the Canyon as well.
Last but not least, thanks for your kind words about the series and frequent comments.
I had written all posts in advance and scheduled them. At same point as stuff kept getting posted, I started to become a bit concerned folks might get a bit tired seeing so many posts about the same artist and album.
I had never done such a long series, not even for a Beatles album! It truly was a spontaneous idea; had I thought about it earlier, I would have made it the 12 Days of Tapestry and literally dedicated one post to each song. Perhaps it’s a good thing that didn’t happen!😆
BTW, Carole King turned 79 years yesterday, something I completely forgot to acknowledge!
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Christian I like long series…because sometimes when I’ve posted a lot of things in one post…people just pay attention to one thing and not the rest. That is why I just do one song per day now. It works for me anyway. I thought it was great!
I listened to every track carefully. I’ll take a listen through headphones on Tapestry. I haven’t heard it in so long. The whole series brought back a lot of memories because we normally only hear the hits.
I thank you the same for posting on mine…our tastes are so close that we can relate to each thing we post.
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Wow. Geez, I like this album but well, not nearly as much as you do. I do series fairly frequently but it’s never once occurred to me to break an album down over so many posts. I doubt I ever would but much credit to you for the commitment.
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I really dig that album, but in addition to the music, there is also some nostalgia here. Tapestry was one of the very first music records I ever heard. As such, it brings childhood memories and marks the beginning of my music journey.
The idea for the series was pretty spontaneous, though I ended up writing most of the posts in advance over two weekends and scheduled them – something I do very rarely.
As the different parts started to publish, there was actually a point when I became a bit concerned people would get tired seeing so many posts in a row about the same artist and the same record. But the ship had been set in motion and could no longer be stopped! 🙂
While it was well received overall, it may remain my only multi-part series dedicated to one album.
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Yes, once the train is rolling down the track there’s no way to stop the fucking thing without getting hurt. When I went to that rock camp, the woman who sang in our band told me that her parents wouldn’t let her listen to rock. When she finally got a chance, the first tune she clicked with was “Roundabout.” And so that’s special to her and so singing “Owner of a Lonely Heart” with Jon Anderson was like me jamming with Clapton. As if.
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