A few years ago I have read "Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation" by Sheila Weller - it sounded promising, as a portrait of three most famous singer-songwriters of their era, but unfortunately it quickly deteriorated into gossipy list of boyfriends and relationships - somehow it wasn't about their music at all but about tabloid material and it makes point that one of the reason female artists are not taken seriously is the way we perceive them as entertainment - as long as we focus on secondary subjects like personal lives, looks and gossip, the music is overlooked. This is why I was curious to read a first-hand memoirs by great lady herself and how was it for her.
Although she was born in Manhattan, King has a certain naiveté about her and this is a huge part of her charm: there is a simplicity and modesty about her (she never aspired to become a superstar and become one when industry basically pushed her into spotlight) which makes the title of this book simply perfect. Even if you are not aware of her incredible back catalogue of the 1960s when she was part of songwriting duo Goffin & King, you probably must have heard of "Tapestry" - a quintessential early 1970s album that broke all the records and stayed in hit charts for six years - one of the best selling albums of all time and one that created singer-songwriter genre. Here, for the first time King recollects how was it for her to enter the music business as a teenager, the buzz and excitement of creating all these early hits after hits - "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", "The Loco-Motion", "Up on the Roof", "One Fine Day", "Oh No Not My Baby", "Goin' Back" - and what was going on in the background, where she as twenty-three old had to sign papers to allow shock treatment for her schizophrenic husband who (like many others) burned his brain with LSD.
King herself might have stayed in the background permanently, if it wasn't for smart music industry agents and producers who realised this little housewife might be a talent worth nurturing - they carefully guided her into spotlight and eventually she blossomed as a reluctant pop superstar whose simplicity appealed to millions around the world. "Tapestry" came as a balm, as a medicine after a decade full of excess - it still has a healing power, all those years later. That is why it comes as a surprise to find out that right after that phenomenal success, King disappeared into a life on a farm - to my knowledge the only superstar who did so - and came back from time to time just to record new album as she was contractually obliged - where she lived without electricity, milked the goat, washed her clothes at the spring and basically lived what we would call today off-the-grid. There are recollections about failed relationships (not surprisingly, since she must have been attractive catch), songwriting, people who for various reasons impressed her and (the elephant in the room) long-winded, detailed description of legal fight with her neighbours to stop them driving trough her property - it is such a petty detail blown out of proportions that it makes you wonder how on earth this gets more space in her memoirs than any far more important music collaboration or creation. I mean, she didn't mention Dusty Springfield once but she gets on and on how she fought in the court for years to prevent people from driving on the road.
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