Carole King
Carole King Klein[3] (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has been active since 1958. One of the most successful female songwriters of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, she wrote or co-wrote 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100.[4] She also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK,[5] making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005.[6]
For other people with similar names, see Carol King (disambiguation).
Carole King
- Singer
- songwriter
- musician
1958–present
4, including Louise Goffin and Molly Larkey
- Vocals
- piano
- Rockingale
- Ode/Epic/CBS
- A&M Records
- Koch Records
- Priority/EMI
- RCA
King's major success began in the 1960s when she and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits, many of which have become standards, for numerous artists. She has continued writing for other artists since then. King's success as a performer in her own right did not come until the 1970s, when she sang her own songs, accompanying herself on the piano, in a series of albums and concerts. After experiencing commercial disappointment with her debut album Writer, King scored her breakthrough with the album Tapestry, which topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971 and remained on the charts for more than six years.[7]
King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry, which held the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her record sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide.[8][9] She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a performer and songwriter.[10] She is the recipient of the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first woman to be so honored.[11] She is also a 2015 Kennedy Center Honoree.
Early life and education[edit]
King was born Carol Joan Klein on February 9, 1942, in Manhattan, New York City, to Jewish parents Eugenia (née Cammer), a teacher, and Sidney N. Klein, a firefighter.[12][13][14][15] King's parents met in an elevator in 1936 at Brooklyn College, where her father was a chemistry major and her mother was an English and drama major.[16]: 10
They married in 1937 during the last years of the Great Depression.[16]: 10 King's mother dropped out of college to run the household; her father also quit college and briefly took a job as a radio announcer.[16]: 10 With the economy struggling, he then took a more secure job as a firefighter.[16]: 10 After King was born, her parents remained in Brooklyn and were eventually able to buy a small two-story duplex where they could rent out the upstairs for income.[17][18]
King's mother had learned to play piano as a child, and after buying a piano, would sometimes practice. When King developed an insatiable curiosity about music from the time she was about three, her mother began teaching her basic piano skills, without giving her actual lessons.[16]: 14 When King was four, her parents discovered she had absolute pitch,[19] which enabled her to name a note correctly just by hearing it.[16]: 14 King's father enjoyed showing off his daughter's skill to visiting friends: "My dad's smile was so broad that it encompassed the lower half of his face. I enjoyed making my father happy and getting the notes right."[16]: 15
King's mother began giving her real music lessons when she was four[16]: 16 with King climbing the stool, made higher still by a phone book.[20] With her mother sitting beside her, King learned music theory and elementary piano technique, including how to read notation and execute proper note timing. King wanted to learn as much as possible: "My mother never forced me to practice. She didn't have to. I wanted so much to master the popular songs that poured out of the radio."[16]: 16
King began kindergarten when she was four, and after her first year she was promoted directly to second grade, showing an exceptional facility with words and numbers.[16]: 16 In the 1950s, she went to James Madison High School. She formed a band called the Co-Sines, changed her name from Carol Klein to Carole King, and made demo records with her friend Paul Simon for $25 a session.[21][22] Her first official recording was the promotional single "The Right Girl", released by ABC-Paramount in 1958, which she wrote and sang to an arrangement by Don Costa.[23]
King attended Queens College, where she met Gerry Goffin, who was to become her songwriting partner. When she was 17, they married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island in August 1959 after King became pregnant with her first daughter, Louise.[24][25] They quit college and took day jobs, Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary.[26] They wrote songs together in the evening.[27]
Neil Sedaka, who had dated King when he was still in high school,[28] had a hit in 1959 with "Oh! Carol". Goffin took the tune and wrote the playful response, "Oh! Neil", which King recorded and released as a single the same year. The B-side contained the Goffin-King song "A Very Special Boy".[29][30] The single was not a success.[31] After writing the Shirelles' 1960 Billboard No. 1 hit "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" – the first No. 1 by a black girl group[32] – Goffin and King gave up their daytime jobs to concentrate on writing.[33][34] "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" became a pop standard.[35][36]
Personal life and family[edit]
King has been married four times, to: Gerry Goffin, Charles Larkey, Rick Evers, and Rick Sorenson. In her 2012 memoir, King wrote that she had been physically abused by her third husband, Rick Evers, on a regular basis.[16]: 282 Evers died of a cocaine overdose days after they separated in 1978.[16]
Her children are musicians Louise Goffin and Sherry Goffin Kondor, artist Molly Larkey, and Levi Larkey.[93]
As of November 2018, King lives in Idaho.[94]
Political and environmental activism[edit]
After relocating to Idaho in 1977, King became involved in environmental issues. Since 1990, she has been working with the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other groups towards passage of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA). King has testified on Capitol Hill three times on behalf of NREPA: in 1994, 2007 and again in 2009.[95][96]
King is also a supporter of the Democratic Party. In 2003, she began campaigning for John Kerry, performing in private homes for caucus delegates during the Democratic primaries. On July 29, 2004, she made a short speech and sang at the Democratic National Convention, about two hours before Kerry made his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for president.[97] King continued her support of Kerry throughout the general election. When Kerry was named Secretary of State in 2013 she campaigned with US Representative Ed Markey, the Democratic nominee to succeed Kerry in a special election.
In 2008, King appeared on the March 18 episode of The Colbert Report, touching on her politics again. She said she was supporting Hillary Clinton, and said the choice had nothing to do with gender. She also said she would have no issues if Barack Obama won the election. Before the show's conclusion, she returned to the stage to perform "I Feel the Earth Move".[98]
On October 6, 2014, she performed at a Democratic fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, attended by Vice President Joe Biden.[99]
On January 21, 2017, King marched in the 2017 Women's March in Stanley, Idaho, carrying a sign that said "One Small Voice." In an op-ed for The Huffington Post, she wrote she carried that message because "I've never stopped believing that one small voice plus millions of other small voices is exactly how we change the world."[100]
