June 29 Tip: Learn about the life of singer/songwriter Carole King

Learn about the life of singer/songwriter Carole King
(The June 29 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/28/196326148/for-carole-king-songwriting-is-a-natural-talent?sc=17&f=13

Carole King initially found it extremely difficult to navigate the social hierarchies of high school. The Grammy Award-winning songwriter was a few years younger than her fellow classmates and was often dismissed as being "cute."

"And it was like, no, I don't want to be cute, I want to be beautiful and smart," she tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "And that wasn't happening, and then I connected through music. So music became a way of identifying my particular niche. How lucky for me."

King, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, has written for everyone from Little Eva to Aretha Franklin to James Taylor. Her 1971 solo album Tapestry spent 15 weeks at the top of the charts, and stayed on the charts for more than six years.

But King was just 15 when she and three classmates formed a vocal quartet called the Co-Sines at James Madison High School. At night, she attended disc jockey Alan Freed's concerts — a veritable "who's who" of rock 'n' roll performers — and later set up a meeting with Freed, an internationally known rock promoter she thought could help her break into the songwriting business. Freed told her to look up the names of record companies in the phone book.

She recounts the story in her memoir, A Natural Woman, explaining that she called Atlantic Records and arranged a meeting. Soon after, she wrote her first big hit — the Shirelles number, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" — with Gerry Goffin, who would later become her husband.

She met Goffin at Queens College, where she also met Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel and Neil Sedaka. Simon and King helped record demos for other bands but never wrote together. Instead, King collaborated with Goffin. It was a partnership that worked instantaneously, she says.

"What made him so extraordinary as a lyricist was his ability, in really simple words, big ideas, big feelings, big thoughts," she says. "He had the ability — he's a straight man — to get inside a woman's head and say the things a woman was thinking."