Carole King Caricature

Carole King Caricature, illustrated here in her Laurel Canyon home on January 27, 1971 for the cover of her album “Tapestry”, age 29.
The cover photograph was taken by A&M staff photographer Jim McCrary at King’s Laurel Canyon home. It shows her sitting in a window frame, holding a tapestry that she’d hand-stitched herself, with her cat Telemachus at her feet.

King is an American singer-songwriter who has been active since 1958, initially as one of the staff songwriters at the Brill Building and later as a solo artist. She is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
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.

Co-written King and Goffin hits: “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” (The Shirelles), “Take Good Care Of My Baby” (Bobby Vee), “Some Kind Of Wonderful” (The Drifters/Grand Funk Railroad), “The Loco-motion” (Little Eva, Grand Funk Railroad), “Go Away Little Girl” (Steve Lawrence), “I’m Into Something Good” (Herman’s Hermits) , “Don’t Bring Me Down” (The Animals), “Goin’ Back” (The Byrds), “I Wasn’t Born To Follow” (The Byrds), “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (The Monkees), “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman”, (Aretha Franklin).

In 1970, while in Laurel Canyon, King met James Taylor and Joni Mitchell as well as Toni Stern, with whom she collaborated on songs. King made her first solo album, Writer, in 1970 for Lou Adler’s Ode label, with Taylor playing acoustic guitar and providing backing vocals.

1971’s Tapestry, featured new compositions as well as reinterpretations of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” The album was recorded concurrently with Taylor’s Mud Slide Slim, with an overlapping set of musicians including King, Danny Kortchmar and Joni Mitchell.
Both albums included “You’ve Got a Friend”, which was a number 1 hit for Taylor; King said in a 1972 interview that she “didn’t write it with James or anybody really specifically in mind. But when James heard it he really liked it and wanted to record it”.

She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her songwriting.

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