Ten Days of Tapestry

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.

James Taylor and Joni Mitchell recording background vocals for Carole King’s “Tapestry.”
(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

Ten Days of Tapestry

Part VIII of my 10-day celebration of Carole King’s Tapestry is bringing us close to the album’s 50th anniversary day, which is this Wednesday, February 10. The previous parts have featured all of side A – I Feel the Earth Move, So Far Away, It’s Too Late, Home Again, Beautiful and Way Over Yonder – and the first two tracks of side B, You’ve Got a Friend and Where You Lead. Next up is the third track on the B side, and it’s a true standout: Will You Love Me Tomorrow.

Also sometimes known as Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, this beautiful ballad is one of two tracks on Tapestry, co-written in 1960 by Carole and her then-husband and lyricist Gerry Goffin. It was first recorded and released by American girl group The Shirelles that same year. The song became their first no. 1 single in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100. It also climbed to no. 4 in the U.K., giving them their biggest hit there. Will You Love Me Tomorrow became the breakthrough hit for Goffin-King.

On the Tapestry version, James Taylor not only provided acoustic guitar but also backing vocals. Oh, and there was another prominent backing vocalist: Joni Mitchell. The vocals of the three artists beautifully blend, making the tune one of the outstanding gems on Tapestry.

According to Songfacts, apparently because of its perceived sexual lyrics, Will You Love Me Tomorrow met with some resistance from radio stations, but not enough to stop it from becoming a huge hit – absolutely laughable, especially from today’s perspective!

Songfacts also notes Shirley Alston, the lead vocalist of The Shirelles, initially dismissed the song as “too Country and Western”. But producer Luther Dixon reassured her the group could adapt the tune to their style. He also asked Carole and Gerry to add strings and speed up the tempo. They did and the rest is history.

Tapestry producer Lou Adler, who also owned King’s record company, explained, as quoted by Songfacts: “The only thing we reached back for, which was calculated in a way, which of the old Goffin and King songs that was hit should we put on this album? And, that’s how we came up with ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.’ I thought that song fit what the other songs were saying in Tapestry. A very personal lyric.” Interestingly, Carole’s version of Will You Love Me Tomorrow was not released as a single.

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube

Ten Days of Tapestry

On February 10, 2021, Carole King’s Tapestry is turning 50. Not only is it one of the most iconic pop albums ever recorded, but Tapestry holds a special place in my heart. Over the next 10 days, I intend to celebrate this timeless gem largely one song at a time. Since Tapestry has 12 tracks, I guess I should have started this series two days earlier to truly make it one track each day. Well, obviously I didn’t, so I need to cheat a little to fit the series within 10 days. I’m going to kick it off and finish up with two songs and highlight one tune on each day two to day nine.

Tapestry is one of the very first music vinyl records I ever heard when I was a seven or eight year-old growing up in Germany. Even though I didn’t understand a word of English at the time, Carole’s music spoke to me right away. And, believe it or not, pretty soon, I found myself singing along, mimicking the English language. I memorized much of the lyrics that way, and later on when I started taking English lessons in fifth grade, I actually began to understand word by word what I had phonetically mimicked years before.

Tapestry inner sleeve

Tapestry was Carole King’s sophomore solo album. It came out nine months after her debut Writer. While Carole was only 29 years old when Tapestry was released, she already had had an impressive 13-year music career under her belt. Most of that time she had spent writing songs together with lyricist Gerry Goffin. Carole met Gerry while they were students in Queens College and married him at age 17 after she had become pregnant with her first daughter Louise.

Goffin-King became one of the most prolific and most successful songwriting partnerships of the ’60s. Some of the hits they wrote include Will You Love Me Tomorrow (The Shirelles), Chains (The Cookies, The Beatles), The Loco-Motion (Little Eva), Take Good Care of My Baby (Bobby Vee), Up on the Roof (The Drifters), I’m into Something Good (Earl-Jean, Herman’s Hermits), One Fine Day (The Chiffons), Pleasant Valley Sunday (The Monkees) and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin). They even dabbled somewhat in psychedelic rock with Don’t Bring Me Down, which The Animals recorded and released in 1966.

Back to Tapestry. Unless noted otherwise all music and lyrics were written by Carole. Here’s the opener I Feel the Earth Move, a piano-driven rocker with a bluesy touch, fueled by Carole’s honky tonk style piano and guitarist Danny Kootch’s great fill-ins. What a terrific way to kick off the album! I Feel the Earth Move also became the A-side of Tapestry’s lead single, backed by It’s Too Late. Billboard lists I Feel the Earth Move as a no. 1 tune on the Hot 100, though according to Songfacts, there is some debate over this. Apparently, after a few weeks of frequent airplay of I Feel the Earth Move, DJs discovered the B-side and ended up playing it more. Billboard subsequently designated the single a double-A. As the result, the tunes were no longer tracked separately and are now both considered to be no. 1 songs.

After an energetic opener, Carole decided to slow things down with the ballad So Far Away. So far away/Doesn’t anybody stay in one place any more?/It would be so fine to see your face at my door/It doesn’t help to know you’re just time away/Long ago I reached for you and there you stood/Holding you again could only do me good/Oh how I wish I could but you’re so far away…Such beautifully written lyrics.

According to Songfacts, Tapestry producer Lou Adler said, “So Far Away’ is my favorite song on Tapestry. I use the phrase a lot, ‘Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?’ It’s the road, it’s the people traveling. It just seems to me an anthem of that particular time and so well written and one of the earlier songs she wrote for this album.”

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube