ABSTRACT
American songwriter, recording artist, born in Brooklyn. Carole King formed a songwriting partnership with her husband, Gerry Goffin, in the late 1950s and signed on with the Brill Building firm Aldon Music. They scored their first hit with the Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” which reached number one in January 1961. This began a long string of successes that lasted into the late 1960s and included the number one hits “Take Good Care of My Baby” (Bobby Vee; 1961), “The Loco-motion” (Little Eva; 1962), and “Go Away Little Girl” (Steve Lawrence; 1962), and such standards as the Chiffons’s “One Fine Day,” the Drifters’ “Up on the Roof,” and Aretha Franklin’s signature song “A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like).” King also tried her hand at recording her own material and scored a Top 40 hit with “It Might as Well Rain Until September” in September 1962. But she did not achieve significant success as a performer until 1971, when her LP Tapestry (featuring the number one hit “It’s Too Late”) topped the charts, sold over 10 million copies, and won the Grammy as album of the year, helping to usher in the singer-songwriter movement. She continued to place albums in the charts consistently through the end of the 1970s, reaching the Top 10 with Music (1971), Rhymes and Reasons (1972), Fantasy (1973), Wrap Around Joy (1974; featuring the number one hit “Jazzman”), and Thoroughbred (1976). From 1978, her recordings were less successful commercially, but she continued recording occasionally into the 21st century.
